#223 Johnny's Mom Took Notes
From Phone to Podcast…
Allison and I spoke privately last year about her son's type 1 diabetes. In today's episode you'll hear me realize that fact way too late into the episode.
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Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, and welcome to Episode 223 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's episode is sponsored by dancing for diabetes Omni pod Dexcom. And real good foods. There are links to all of the advertisers in the show notes of your podcast app at Juicebox podcast.com. And by now I'm hoping stuck in your head because I've done this a bunch of times. For more information about on the pod, go to my Omni pod.com forward slash juice box. And to find out about Dexcom, you can go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box dancing for diabetes is at dancing the number for diabetes.com. And it real good foods calm you can save 20% on your entire order by using the offer code juice box at checkout. I have a lot of have to say during the music. So let me get right to it. Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise Always consult a physician before making any changes to your medical plan or becoming bold with insulin. And later in this episode during the dancing for diabetes ad, you don't want to miss it because they are announcing a giveaway. And what are they giving away a phone call with me where you can talk about whatever you want. So stay tuned for that. Today I'm going to be speaking with Alison Johnny's mom. She's a person who I spoke to on the phone a long time ago and sort of did the podcast for her privately it seems like and this is going to be a little follow up, find out about their lives and see how they're doing since she and I spoke.
Alison 1:38
My name is Alison, I have a almost nine year old boy who has type one. He has had type one for just about four and a half years. So you're kind of at this point where he has had it at half of his life and half not because he's just about to turn nine. And he has an amazing boy named Johnny.
Scott Benner 2:03
Was Johnny in kindergarten when it happened?
Alison 2:05
No. So Johnny was finishing up preschool. And he was registered for pre kindergarten because here in California, you have to have a September birthday. And he's November. So it was so easy. His whole time in elementary school. He's had it.
Scott Benner 2:19
That's actually I would think better. So did you? Did you sort of you leave him in preschool? Did you bring him back home? What did you do during the diagnosis time for that?
Alison 2:28
You know, it happened Mother's Day weekend. So he had about a month of school left for preschool. And we weren't quite sure what to do. Because,
Unknown Speaker 2:36
um,
Alison 2:37
I called the preschool director. And I said, you know, here's what's happened. And they said, you know, like, they had to meet with their board, because they're part of a church to see if they were willing to take on the risk. But they, you know, they Johnny had been there since we were doing baby and me. So they just adored him. They wanted to do what they could I am I also had a little one at the time. He wasn't even I think he just turned two. So the director like, you know, we met and she learned to finger pricks, and we're like, Alright, let's just wing this. I mean, I kind of remember your stories where you said, You sat in the parking lot with Arden and I kind of did the same thing with Johnny, I would just, I go and be like, Alright, let's you know, let's see what happens. And I'd get called from the director, you know, he's crying, we think he's like, low, and I'd go over there. And he's like, 400. And I was like, no.
Unknown Speaker 3:27
But we got through it.
Scott Benner 3:28
Did their fear outweigh their understanding? Do
Unknown Speaker 3:30
you think? You know, it
Alison 3:32
was interesting. I know, several of the people here, when we had the meeting with the faculty were like, Oh, we have our, you know, my parents of type two. And so I know all about this. And it was like, you know, we were still no one in our family has type one. And so for us, we were like, We don't know,
Unknown Speaker 3:47
you know, at the time,
Alison 3:48
we didn't even know much of the difference between type one and type two, we were like, great, you know, something? You know, I think they loved my son, and they wanted to do what they could. Yeah, um, and I appreciate that. And I think he had like, he was only going three days a week, right? So and he didn't have a dexcom he wasn't on a pump. And so we, you know, we made for the whole world and our whole world change, like everyone's does, and we just, we made the best of it for that month. Um, and then we brought them home for the summer.
Scott Benner 4:18
We didn't have any real context. So anybody who who offered up I know, don't worry, you were like, Oh, thank god, there's someone around me that understands this. It is an interesting position to be in. Why do you think you had such a limited understanding in the beginning? Was it just like, did your doctors not explain things in a certain way? Because it's an interesting thing to say that I wasn't even I was still confused between type one and type two.
Alison 4:43
Well, it was weird. So I mean, you know, the whole the whole day when he was diagnosed was so weird and even leading up to it because both my children about three months before had strep throat, and my little one bounced back immediately. But Johnny, he was four at the time. He went like through two rounds of antibody biotics. And it was weird as the night he was diagnosed with a strep, he started having potty accents, which was like nothing, you know, and, and for the whole month and like he started having the thirst and like going to the bathroom all the time. And I actually his pediatrician tested his blood sugar during that time, and it was like 70. Okay, so, you know, going into like, when, and after three months of just this continuous behavior, when I took it back to the pediatrician, I'm like, Look, there's something wrong here. And when they finger picked him, he was 330.
Unknown Speaker 5:31
And that goes Johnny's meter.
Alison 5:35
And, you know, but the pediatrician was like, Oh, you know, they gave me the devastating news, he had typed type one, and you know, I'm crying, and they have to take my kids out of the room, and they're like, you know, we're gonna send you to an endocrinologist who can tell you about food, they're gonna give you some insulin and send you home. I was like, you know, okay, I call my husband yet my mother's an RN, nurse. So she came, my best friend is a pediatrician. So, like, everyone met us at the pediatric endocrinologist. And suddenly, he's throwing, you must go to the ER, your life is changing. Like he was so serious and scary, that we couldn't comprehend anything anyone was saying.
Scott Benner 6:11
So I tell you, every week go to dancing for diabetes calm, and you really should support them, and check them out on Facebook and Instagram and everything, and a lot of you do, which I appreciate, but I just wanted to do more for them. So in May, I'm actually going down to speak at one of their events, and we were trying to figure out a way that I could help them, you know, fundraise, here's what we decided, dancing for diabetes. And I have teamed up to give away to not only the people attending the conference, but to you, the listeners to the Juicebox Podcast, an opportunity to speak with me. So if you would like a chance to chat with me one on one, I'll be conducting 245 minute phone calls or Skype, you know, FaceTime, whatever you got, as well as one big one hour call, that includes a 30 minute follow up. So there's three calls in there to 45 minute calls. One one hour call that includes a 30 minute follow up. That's three opportunities to ask me anything you want, talk about whatever's on your mind. So while I'm at the dancing for diabetes event on May 30, I'm actually going to choose the winners at random. Before I leave the conference, to have your name included in this opportunity, go to dancing for diabetes.com and click on the donate today button between now and may 17. There's a suggested donation of $10. But I don't think dancing for diabetes is gonna get upset if you donate more. And all you have to do is be sure to mention juicebox in the notes of your donation. Those of you who do not have internet access, although I don't know how you would get this podcast without it. Or if you have an inability to make a donation, you can mail your name to dancing for diabetes, go to their website for their contact information. I hope to see everyone at the conference in Orlando. But if you can't make it, this really is a wonderful way to pick my brain. We can talk about the Avengers movie or Brexit, whatever you want, even, you know, diabetes.
Alison 7:58
He was so serious and scary, that we can comprehend anything anyone was saying,
Scott Benner 8:04
you got you got flipped out. And you were just like, yeah, I hear that. Like, I feel like it happened to me. My wife was just retelling a story the other day about when my daughter was diagnosed, and they came into the room to teach me how to teach us how to carb count. And there was like some fairly simple mathematical equation that had to do with fractions and everything. And five minutes into it. My wife's like, he just started to cry. And I was like, I was like, I don't understand. I'm like, Oh, my God, I don't understand seventh grade math all of a sudden, you know, like, it really just shut my
Alison 8:33
my background, I work in finance, but I couldn't get the math like I my brain was on shutdown of my poor son like I, you know, like my husband, he's, you know, he's got a physics degree. And so he had to kind of take over at that point, because I remember just crying when we brought Johnny home. And I was like, I can't do two plus two, like,
Unknown Speaker 8:52
I just got lost. I
Alison 8:54
you know, but the hospital was so scary because they were like, you know, the nurses, he's in the PICU. And the nurses are like, okay, you have to fit me, they brought a tray of food. They're like, you have to count these cards. They were like, What are you talking about? And then they're also like, your son cannot leave the hospital until you and every single person who comes in contact with him can count cards and gift shots.
Scott Benner 9:13
Yeah, we'll just take a tiny bit of I know, they don't have the time probably but it would take the tiniest bit of compassion during during those conversations to really make a huge difference, you know?
Alison 9:24
Yeah. And it's weird as well. He was I mean, he was one of the first to come to pick you while he was in the PICU two kids came in to UK. And they're like the nurses are like yeah, lucky he wasn't like them.
Scott Benner 9:36
When you look back, we look back now Don't you wish she were like you now so you could be like, Hey, why don't you go to hell? Why are you talking to me like that? Like I don't I did you feel Do you in hindsight feel like, like that was not valuable. Imagine?
Alison 9:51
Oh, absolutely. Because at one point my husband he had called we called in. All of our parents are divorced and remarried. So we called in every grandparents we had people from all over This tape Come on my sister came our nanny came everyone came to the hospital and spent two days learning how to take care of Johnny. And at one point, I guess the doctor had come into the PICU. And because we weren't there, he got all upset. And when we finally went back, he was like, yeah, you weren't here for me. So I'm not here for you when he left. The doctor did that. Yeah. We don't see him anymore.
Scott Benner 10:22
Where are you aware? Are you are you like seven miles off the shore in California?
Alison 10:27
You know, it was, it was a very rough start. Fortunately, I learned as we were learning all this, that's a dear friend from high school is an endocrinologist, and he sees kids. So dad has changed everything for us. Like we ditched the other doctor, we moved to him. And it's been an amazing experience since then, because we get the comforting support we need.
Scott Benner 10:48
I'm always interested when I look at, I was just looking today at the map of where everyone listens that like all of you guys listen from. And it's so global. It's incredible. Right? There are very few there are very few countries that don't download this podcast, which is is really something I was contacted two days ago by a woman in Australia who's like, can you come here and speak to my group? And I was like, Yeah, I guess it's sure you help me work it out. I've never been to Australia before, but I would love to ride on a plane for 19 hours. And but but but my point is, is that there's places you know, the listeners come from everywhere. But a disproportionate amount of Californians listen to the show. Really. So I know the state is obviously much larger. But if the numbers still don't bear out, it's there's more people listen, I guess, per capita in California than almost every other state in the US. It's really it's really interesting. I never I'm never gonna figure out why.
Alison 11:47
I Well, you know, it's weird when Johnny was diagnosed. The endocrinologist said that where we are living there had been in the last year a 30% increase in children develop developing type one. And a lot of them were not hereditary.
Scott Benner 12:00
Maybe that's my answer. Yeah. Not hereditary in a way that you can see when you look back. So what is your history?
Unknown Speaker 12:08
No one.
Scott Benner 12:09
How about other endocrine issues? hypothyroidism? Nope. silly thing.
Alison 12:13
This is like our No, this is our first I mean, we have you know, our parents are like, possibly type two, you know, but nothing. Yeah,
Scott Benner 12:20
no. Interesting. Well, you're just you and your husband are just the lucky combination.
Alison 12:25
Yes, he got super lucky with this brand new at least I'll tell you this. At least Johnny's amazing. He handles it. And I could not have asked better. I mean, I have parents who come up to me and are like, shots of just how mature he handles it. And I think it's he doesn't remember life before it.
Scott Benner 12:42
Yeah, I do wonder sometimes I don't think Arden has a perspective at all prior to diabetes.
Alison 12:48
I know it makes me a little sad. But it's I he takes it with just he just does it. He's a normal kid. And diabetes comes along with it be
Scott Benner 12:57
sad if you want to be but I can remember not being married. And that just makes me sadder.
Alison 13:04
I remember getting sleep vaguely.
Scott Benner 13:06
Exactly. There's things I remember a little too well. How's that? like five minutes by myself? Yeah. Okay, so so Johnny is diagnosed. You said in the very beginning, obviously, there was no how soon until someone mentioned to you Do you guys want to do pens or a pumper? Like when did it start becoming less people yelling at you and more kind of common decisions being made?
Unknown Speaker 13:28
It's hard to you know, it's
Alison 13:29
hard to remember the craziness in the hospital. I mean, I remember, you know, my husband, I think my husband and my mom went but then to get them all stuff. And then nurses are like, okay, you have to call the insurance and your insurance, you have to figure out what meter they cover which pen they cover, like, what's a pen like I? So they had us, you know, and it likes everyone else's story. They had us leave the hospital with one bottle, Atlanta's one bottle of homologue a bag of syringes. And they're like, go to your pharmacy on your way home, pick up a pen pick up, you know, if we're like, Okay, um, is that, you know, it was trying out that summer. It was like trying to figure out how to get all this together. How to, you know, I had to sit on him. At four years old, I had to chase him around the house and sit on him to give him a shot. Because I can't blame him. He didn't want them. Yeah, um, and it was just it was a rough training out getting the car counting. And you're and then also like, I had to cancel all of his summer camps, because he I work from home at the time I work part time. But they're all of them were like, We're sorry. We don't have a medical team who can watch him. Yeah.
Scott Benner 14:33
Yeah, they don't know what to do. And listen, in fairness, you didn't know what to do either. So it was Yeah, right. So it's, yeah, it's, it's very difficult to be upset at somebody for not understanding your disease.
Unknown Speaker 14:44
I mean, no,
Scott Benner 14:45
I even I sit here now and I realize I understand this. But you know, I'm sure there's any number of things that other people are living with, I would have no frame of reference whatsoever. So it's just it's just it's with a four year old. Going to be a five Like, Hey, can I drop my kid off with this insulin that might kill him if you do it wrong? And by the way, I'm not 100% sure how to use it and good luck, you know, like, and you wouldn't put him in that situation to begin with?
Alison 15:10
No, in the end, you know, and we were hearing terms like an insulin pod, but we didn't know one was we had not heard of a dexcom yet.
Scott Benner 15:18
Today, we had a little bit of a waffle catastrophe. Arden chose waffles for breakfast, and my wife Pre-Bolus for them. She wasn't sure how much exactly to do. And she was about to ask me, but she got some units moving. You know, at the right time, just get some momentum going on the insulin side like you hear us talk about her on the podcast. Anyway, a second or two later, she texts me She says, Hey, Arden chose waffles. This is what I did. What else should we do? And I said, Oh gosh, the pumps about to run out of insulin. I was gonna change it this morning, I would have changed it before the waffles Had I known. But no matter. I'll come down and do it now. came downstairs, change the pump. waffles are already in the you know, being warmed up with her on the new pump put in more insulin, you know, change some bazel rates kind of ramp them up a little bit. But now the question is right, this is a new pump. It's a new site. Is it going to work? Well, I don't know. But you know, we already promised the waffles and how do we keep on top of this? Well, the answer is simple Dexcom. All I did was watch the data coming back from the Dexcom. And adjusted appropriately. We got through this lawful catastrophe, if you want to call it that. How about with a blood sugar that never went over? 170 I'm looking at it right now to make sure I give you the right number. That included me leaving the house and going somewhere and continuing to manage this remotely. How do I do that? Because Dexcom has Sharon follow. And I have an iPhone. Actually, if I had an Android it would work as well. So I was able to see Arden's blood sugar while I wasn't in the house continue to make adjustments to her insulin based on the information coming back from the Dexcom we got waffles got through a whole pump change a pump change in the middle of a waffle meal. I want you to let that soak in. Never over 170 got it right back down hour and a half later with Dexcom. Let me see you do that without Dexcom. Go to dexcom.com Ford slash juice box are the links to show notes at Juicebox podcast.com. To get started today, these are my results. Yours may vary.
Alison 17:14
We were talking about like you know the old endocrinologists were like okay, what should we be doing next? You got to get this right first. And we were like, okay, you know, thank goodness, two things happened. Um, my husband's cousin had a friend who had a daughter who was type one. So she allowed me to call her and email her all hours of the night, when I had questions like the night we gave him way too much insulin when he was going to have some s'mores. And we were afraid he was going to crash in goes to low super low. I was nervous to call the school he was going to go to the elementary school because this you know, everything had changed for when I registered him. And we got the most amazing health clerk who was like, You know what, hey, we haven't we have two type ones here. And one of the moms has said if another mom ever calls give the number. So over that summer, I met this mom who had a son who was I think in second grade, and she had a son who was going to be in my son's pre k class. So I got to connect with another family. And that helped the transition. I had two sources of people I could go to when I was super overwhelmed. Not
Scott Benner 18:12
great. You had your own little personal, like, three person community. Exactly, yeah, it's excellent. It's so needed. It's, as I sit here and think about what I'm going to do tomorrow, I had to I'm given a talk tomorrow. So I had to, I had to pare my thoughts down, because we're gonna do, we're gonna do the podcast live for the first time. So it's gonna be, you know, a half an hour of the podcast and a conversation, and then it's going to transition into more talking about management stuff. So I had to really pare it down. And I got it down to like five, like, you know, simple thoughts. And one of them that I couldn't remove as I was looking through what I thought was important was was the sense of community, somebody to reach to. Yeah, you know, it just I don't see how I mean, it's just so much easier when, when that exists, because look at you, you were willing to listen to a person working at a preschool Who said I have I know somebody with type two diabetes, there was a moment in your life where you were like, you are the source of all knowledge.
Alison 19:10
Well, you know, at least I had, you know, I had also with my mom being here was a nurse, she had at least a little experience, not too much of diabetes. And at least I also had a friend My friends, a pediatric cardiologist, so again, it was like they had snippets, but they didn't want to, to advise because they're like, this is not our expertise. Yeah.
Scott Benner 19:28
And what that and that's a very polite doctor way of saying I really don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, much. I I went through medical school and we read about this. That's pretty much what they what they get. And so you know, it is what it is. Exactly, it gets a little more confusing when it's your endocrinologist who doesn't seem to understand or or says what they said to you. Like we like think about it you I heard you say there was a moment where you thought we're ready to find out what else there is. And they told you no. Yeah, like, just stop. And that's what's that four years ago, right?
Alison 19:59
It was Four years ago, yeah, just a little four and a half. And my husband, we're talking today like I even remember going in at one point to his office, you know, he was the lead endocrinologist in this area. And you know, first of all, super too many patients too little time. He was so busy, he sent some sub doctor who like changed all of my son's numbers. And we were already weren't understanding he was in the honeymoon phase. We weren't understanding what to do. And this new doctor comes in is like, you're doing everything wrong. Do it this way. And his numbers were atrocious. And based on that,
Scott Benner 20:31
he fixed it real good. Did he? Oh, yeah. So where this is interesting, where were you when he said, this is not you're not doing well? Like what do you what what did that mean? But you know, average blood sugar and stuff like that.
Alison 20:44
I felt for years, like I was failing and all this. And I felt like you know, every eight one c test I dreaded with a pit in my stomach because it was a report card. And there's my big fat f when my son's a one C was not where I wanted it to be. He was on. I mean, one first pocket I think I listened to you of yours was the roller coaster. And it just made me cry. Because I just it was it. We just we thought we would get this, my husband and I and then we would just lose the control.
Scott Benner 21:12
So let me tell you what I told Rosa on the phone last night, Rosa, if you're listening Hello, I was speaking to Rosa and her 22 year old daughter, because I just happened to be online yesterday. And I saw somebody put a graph online that looked like jagged teeth from a pumpkin. It just went from 60 to 460 to form up and down up and down all day long. And it made me sad. I didn't know them. And I just I had some extra time here saying I reached out. I was like, if you have any interest, reach out and Rosa actually called. And I joked with her I said, um, I said, Well, this is how desperate you are. You've called a stranger on the phone about a situation. But but the I guess my point is, is that I ended up saying to her the same thing I'm going to say to you which isn't it amazing that somebody is willing to give you no tools, no understanding, no instructions? And then have the nerve to tell you, hey, you're doing this wrong?
Alison 22:07
Oh, yes. It's like, because there was no he had no CD. So there was no one they had no nutritionist he I mean, it was we were just trying, you know, suddenly it was like, well, do we ban all foods? Yeah. And some of us even I mean, the transition also into when we saw we switched to seeing my friend, my old high school friend for as an endocrinologist, you know, as we still couldn't get the control. And he kept trying to talk to me, oh, Johnny was on Johnny's been on shots only, he's only gone on an ami pot about a year and a half ago. So we so for the first two and a half years, we were doing shots. And we kept asking, we're like, what are we doing wrong? He's like, well, you need to Pre-Bolus. But you got to figure it out. And we were like, you know, should we do low carb, he's like, at least a one piece of ice that goes with the low carb, he
Unknown Speaker 22:47
said is look,
Alison 22:48
you could do that. But I'll tell you right now, when your kids a teenager, he's going to rebel ate everything under the sun. And then you're going to have a real problem on your hands,
Scott Benner 22:58
I just think then you you're going to lack the understanding of how to in the end, it's all just understanding how the insulin works. It's such a, as I was explaining it last night, on the phone to a person who I'd never spoken to before. And I was sort of with an eye on thinking about this conversation, I'm gonna have to speak to him enough to give on Sunday, I was just thinking, I was like, Wow, it really is. As long as I've been doing this podcast, the absolute core of the truth is that this whole thing is about the timing and amount of your insulin and understanding how it works. Like it really everything else grows from that seed. If you if you don't understand that the rest of it is just, you know, the person on the phone was like, Well, what about Temp Basal? And what about extended bonuses, like yeah, that stuff's all incredibly valuable, like, but you're so lost at this point, you just have to start over, you have to just scrub it down to nothing and and start with, let's figure out how long it takes your insulin to work in your body. And then we'll work on Pre-Bolus. And then you can start working on adjusting amounts and Pre-Bolus times and until you can kind of kill the spikes completely. I was like, and from there, these other ideas will grow. But you can't, you can't turn to page 84 when you don't understand the first you know, 83 pages and just go I'd like to get to the advanced stuff now. But the problem is, is that somebody said to them, You know, I think you could use an extended bolus there. And then they don't know they're stuck in the same spot you're at, they're talking to the lady at the preschool who's like, I know, somebody would type to me like Alright, well, you know, more than me, you're in charge now. And so,
Alison 24:26
you know, and that's what's funny is even when, you know, we let Johnny decide when he wanted to go on a pump. He fought us for the first couple years and I'm like, that's fine. I'm not gonna stick something on you. If you're not willing, you know, you need to be a part of this conversation.
Scott Benner 24:38
You are so California. You bring that kid out here. I'd be like, Hey, this is a Pompey like I don't want I back doesn't matter stuff the rd you're good. And here's $100 make it go away.
Alison 24:51
He felt like he got he got this. He got a bum rap. And so he he for the first few years didn't have much say he didn't have say when we had to stick him All that kind of stuff. And he came to us about because it was a year and a half ago and was like, Okay, I'm ready. And we're like, okay, so I was at least, you know, I was on the forums, and I was on Facebook, I just don't like so I knew all this terminology. And when we went with the Omni pod people, I was like, Alright, how about Temp Basal and extended? They're like, well, we're gonna teach you the basics. I'm like, Well, no, I don't want the basics I need if we're gonna do this, I'm jumping all in, right? And even they were like it, congratulations, you know, the words, not gonna teach you it.
Scott Benner 25:26
So here's what I think it is. And if I'm gonna say two things, first of all, I was mainly joking, I think what you did with letting him come into it on his own, I think that's an incredibly smart idea. I'm probably not a very good parent. But I grew up on the east coast. So nobody really ever took my thoughts into account as a child. So I have a limited understanding of my kids thoughts. Although, you know, one mistake not to get sidetracked too long. But this is a absolute generality, that will be true for everybody never let your kids decide the restaurant. It just a horrible thing you don't like, Where do you want to go? And the next thing you know, you're like, I would just let's not eat. Anyway, going back to what I was saying. So sorry, I just had that happen the other night where we're all sitting in the car looking at each other. And my thought was, why don't I just go back in the house? We're never leaving this. Oh, see. Now
Alison 26:10
if you had a conversation, my little one, it's always Taco Bell, and he refused to go anyplace else.
Scott Benner 26:14
I liked it. He's got to go to. Anyway, um, so seriously, I think you you know, I think the way you handled it is amazing. I think that the the larger problem with when you ask people, can you tell me about this? Can you tell me about that? I think everyone that's why I always tell people, when somebody says no, ask them why? Because I think you'll find most of the time, they don't have an answer to why well, your doctor when you say, hey, I'd like it. And sometimes they go No. How come? Well, you don't know enough yet? Why? Then there's never an answer. You just have to figure this out. Those are very vague. In specific statements. You have to figure this out, you have to figure out Pre-Bolus. And you that's somebody that's code for I don't know what to tell you. And or, or everyone's different. And I don't want to tell you something I know works for me, that doesn't work for you. That's just another variation of, you know, oh, that's just diabetes. And I think that the one thing this podcast has done for me and for anybody listening is proven that that that initial statement of timing and amount that's true for everybody.
Alison 27:19
Well, and I agree with that, because I only learned about your podcast, probably in March, I was I was on I finally saw someone post one of your episodes and one of the diabetes groups. And I was like, Okay, let me listen to this. And I remember going for a walk a couple walks, listening and just coming home in tears, because I was like, wow, we are just messing things up. And over Easter and never having my husband I'm like, okay, we're gonna listen to a couple of the first ones we listened to were a date with someone from Dexcom about the G six that was coming out. And so what about Omni pod that was about the dash. And that those convinced my husband, he turned around, he was like, Okay,
Unknown Speaker 27:52
what are we going to do?
Alison 27:53
So then I reached out to you, and you called me. And we talked in from, I think it was like, early April. From that point on my husband. We're like, okay, we're throwing everything we're doing out the window. And we're gonna start over and we're gonna really figure this out. And it has been now an amazing seven months.
Scott Benner 28:08
Oh, my God, this is so embarrassing. I remember the conversation with you just now that you said it, but not prior to us starting to talk. I'm sorry. I just I just had a whole wash. I completely remember talking to you back then. And I and it was the time of year because I was outside talking was so nice out and like, oh my god. Yeah. And you and you were super enthusiastic at the time. And I talked, I must have had a ton of free time because I went on at length. You're delightful. Thank you. And I know I did. And I remember when you hung up the phone thinking these people are going to do okay, so I had a drumroll here. I would do it. But I don't have one. So how did it go?
Alison 28:50
It was okay. So April was rough. Like I was in tears a lot because I just I feel like, you know, I've worked in this place where like, why can't we just get this and we would try things and he would go super high or super low and the school was really fighting us because he was only on g4. So they were like okay, I'm sorry, he's not FDA approved to do it himself. So every time you want to do something, you either have to go to the school or we're going to have to go get him and he was still missing school. And we were like this is what we're trying to avoid. Like we're fighting to avoid this and I remember it That was one thing you even I even talked about was like how did the administration and what to do and so we struggled through April and we and even It was interesting like even his first day one seemed like after like even a month you're like wow, okay, there's a difference.
Scott Benner 29:39
And then you could see the difference in the first month even though it felt like a struggle.
Alison 29:43
Yeah, because it's a one see went from like 6.4 and January down 5.9
Scott Benner 29:48
Okay, so what I would say to anybody By the way, those are great numbers to begin with but but I what I would say to anybody is that just the same thing again, I said to rose last night I was like when you first start this this is starting over like things aren't Make sense, unlike you just have to stick these basic tenants until they start making sense to you. And, and I do get worried sometimes that people might bail a little early on it. But for the most part, I think that you see Enough, enough improvement in that early going that it makes the rough part rough and it is my assumption I hope people believe me, when when, when they when I say this is that I have no idea how it went for you after you and I talked and we're gonna find out over this next 30 minutes. You know, most old people will think that the first cliffhanger in television was on Dallas with the who shot jr thing but was actually the year before on soap. But this is my own little cliffhanger right here. I'm gonna make it simple for you. Go to my Omni pod.com Ford slash juice box to get started today. With the world's only tubeless insulin pump. It's the insulin pump that Arden has been using since she was four years old. Every day, she's gonna be 15 this summer, Arden's agency has been between five two and six two for five years on the on the bottom, two percents on top of these things alone. Plus, my heartfelt endorsement should really be enough for you to try at least the free demo of the Omni pod. I mean, there's nothing for you to do. No money changes hands, you have not made a promise to continue. When you do this, you just go to the link, which you can find, of course at Juicebox podcast.com. Or in the links of the podcast player that you're listening to right now in the show notes there. That's going to take you to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box. And you're going to get yourself a pod experience kit, a peck on the pod is going to be thrilled to send you an absolutely free, no obligation demo of their product that you can actually try on and wear. And here's what's gonna happen when you do, you're gonna put it on, you're gonna forget it's on, because it's freaking amazing. And then you're gonna call on the five back up and say, Yo, I really would like to try using the omnify Can you help me get started. And they're gonna say, of course, that's gonna be that. I mean, no cliffhanger here. You're gonna enjoy it. And the rest of this ad is the fault of the person that emailed me and said, You should sing more. Get yourself and I'm the pod it's a tube was insulin pump. The god I love it by omnipod.com forward slash the juice bar. Don't just blame the person that email. I didn't want to do it. My assumption is that first time is rough, you start seeing a little bit of improvement gives you a little bit of hope you keep then you start honing things. And it gets easier and easier to the point where I hate I hate to say it like so like it's trite, but diabetes takes up a very small part of my day. And and I don't spend a lot of time with it. You know, Arden has been in a really weird place in the last few months where she's growing and and it's you know, it's been as difficult I told our endo the other day, it This has been as difficult a three month period, as I've ever experienced since I figured out all this stuff. And still hurry once it was five sec.
Unknown Speaker 32:57
That's amazing.
Scott Benner 33:00
All I did was diabetes just got more aggressive with us and I just got more aggressive back with it. There were days where she had 50% increases in her basal rate all day. Last week, Arden had pancakes. So even in the middle of me knowing that she has been using more insulin than you know than normal. I don't relent. She said, Can I have pancakes got a head cold? She wants pancakes. Her blood sugar's really rough. And I was like, Yeah, go ahead. I'll tell you what those pancakes which I think should have taken about 12 or 13 units of insulin took 23 units. Oh my goodness, it was insane. And I just kept going and kept going and pushing and pushing and pushing. I stayed to what I knew would work even though it seemed insane while I was doing it. So anyway, I'm sorry. So after that first one, you saw that a one C and how to go.
Alison 33:49
And you know it like I said it was it was okay. But I mean we were so frustrated with her and my husband's like call handle pain fly him out here because it was like, definitely like, where do we say wrong? If we show you our numbers, you'll get it. And we're like, No, okay, we
Unknown Speaker 34:01
want to get this. Yeah,
Alison 34:04
yeah, yeah, we need to get this you know, it was it was a little hard with some resistance from the school. Our endo. We also started around that time when we were telling him like we're redoing everything and he was cautiously optimistic. He's like, let's he goes on. He goes just you've got to get the timing down. You've got to get because he Johnny was hyper aware for a very long time and he's like, you got to get those lows out of there.
Unknown Speaker 34:25
He just
Alison 34:28
he kick it down to the 40s or 50s that's low. Yeah, yeah. And there's too much insulin and he has you know you in oftentimes he will be functioning just fine at 40.
Unknown Speaker 34:39
Um,
Alison 34:40
so we're like okay, but may start to be the turnaround. And he no longer because we were keeping things stable. He didn't feel gross. He didn't have headaches, he didn't have stomach aches. I didn't have to pick him up early from school. Um, we and it was it was actually it was good timing that we had done all this because as we got through the middle of May something was kind of Went on changing with him. And we were starting to see the effects of adrenaline, okay, but we didn't understand it because suddenly, he was getting like his blood sugar was going up with baseball playoffs, and his blood sugar was going off with presentations at school. And, you know, we learned like we thought they were, we thought we were doing something wrong, and we would give a whole bunch of insulin. And then as soon as the nerves were gone, he crashed. So but we were like, okay, since we had stability, more stability going into that, we then better understood things. So at least now, we had, you know, we had better trend lines, he was feeling better. Um, you know, we I pushed as soon as I knew that the G six was coming out, I was pushing for it, because the school was like, You can't eat because we wanted him to treat take care of himself come third grade, and they're like, unless he's on the G six and your doctor signs off. We're not going to let him
Scott Benner 35:47
really have what so you were on the floor at that point? Yeah. And what was the what was their basis for that? Was that your how your 504 plan was worded? You said earlier, so
Alison 35:59
the G the G four was not FDA approved for dosing off of
Unknown Speaker 36:03
O and B and your school knew that?
Unknown Speaker 36:05
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Really? Yes.
Scott Benner 36:09
I don't know too much. that's a that's a something of, I have to ring Arden's phone and try to get her she's killing me by not answering her text messages right now. I texted, I was like, Hello, hello. Now it's a what now now all of a sudden she hears it. Bolus, excuse me. Point. Six. So funny. So when I talked about kind of just bumping and nudging and the timing of it, right? So Arden's blood sugar's 140 right now. But when I started trying to text her a half an hour ago, and she didn't answer me, she was 122. And I've never gotten a diagonal arrow. The arrow is not up. It's just it's this drift up. Yeah. And so I just needed a little more bumped to get rid of it. And the timing, it's messed up. Now, if she listened, it's not her fault. I'm not angry. But had she had she said, Hey, what's up half an hour ago, I would have used point four instead of point six, so slightly less insulin. And this 140 never would have happened. And she shows how much the timing means, you know,
Alison 37:11
oh, yeah. Well, I'm dealing with you. We had a Johnny had a presentation this morning. And he was in like the 80s. And so I had him have a little sugar. And then as soon as it was done, and when we started our call just now, he was like 160. And I've been fighting 160 for over an hour. And he's down to 147. But it's like,
Scott Benner 37:28
should you have left the ad alone? Do you think?
Unknown Speaker 37:30
Probably?
Scott Benner 37:31
What What made you do it? You just didn't want him to get low while I was doing something at school in front of kids?
Alison 37:35
Yes. Yes. I also I actually didn't anticipate him growing up because of adrenaline because he had been nervous at breakfast. I also, they don't have snack until 10. And he would not have stayed at 80 for two hours. You don't think I just was experienced with him?
Scott Benner 37:52
Yeah, yeah. Even with even with giving the presentation, you don't think that might have helped a little bit?
Alison 37:57
No, because the presentation was over by 815. It was like he was so. So in we've been having this is one of the things like we've been having some challenge with this pod. And it's hard to know, is it the pod? Is it the site,
Scott Benner 38:08
it's always it's just it's the one thing and I think I've been saying this a lot lately again, but where are all of our technology lacks is still the tubing, the canula. And in every pop, not just one of the other i'm not i wouldn't point to one of them that technology that that material is it's just not perfected yet. And your body sees it as a foreign object and it begins to attack it the minute it goes and it sends white blood cells to that site, there's infection, there's like, you know, like, not infection, like oh my god, pus oozing and dying, but like, you know, your body sees that as Hey, something stuck in my skin, and all the things that come with that, when they can design a material that that I mean, I don't know if they ever will be able to but the problem is that no one puts any effort into and Aaron Kowalski was on a year ago from the jdrf. And he said, he really thinks that's one of the very underserved parts of technologies that we're not studying the calcula material enough
Unknown Speaker 39:03
interesting. So
Alison 39:05
well, it's always like we have that we sought to beat is that, you know, we've also been having, you know, cuz all over the diabetes reforms are about you know, the problems we were having with the G sixes. And it's like, we either have an amazing g six, or we have a bad g six. Is it the site or is it the sensor?
Scott Benner 39:19
That's so funny. So we've been using it for a good long while now. Right from the the limited marker, at least rollout which I think was in June 2018. Okay, and now I'm June, July, August. I mean, we're six months later. And I think I haven't had one issue that that I've heard anybody say, and I always try to think of it like this, like I know, it's the forums and it's a concentrated place where people with diabetes are but people don't generally get online to say great stuff. You know, like like so they're there they have so once you see a couple people say, Oh my god, this is the problem even think about on the pot for a second. I don't know how many users they have, but like, you know, it's hundreds of thousands Dozens of people using the Omni pod. If you see five people online saying I'm having a real problem, you think to yourself, oh my god, there's a real problem. I saw five people talking about it. But the truth of the matter is, is statistically, if 10,000 people were having a problem, it wouldn't be a lot of people it would be to them. But it wouldn't be overall, it's such a weird thing to try to figure out. Well, you
Alison 40:19
and I were kind of restarted in like mid to late June, we're about four months into the G six and I mean, we had we had a they had to replace this first transmitter, they had it they replace it within 10 days, it was just a bad transmitter. Okay. Um, but you know, we've had in for the over the summer was crazy, because I would expect the summer were so much going on in heat we would have had problems with with sensors. And it's only been since he's been back in school that we've had some quirks, like, I think one I think the way it must have just been swaying in his body. Like, I don't think it stayed in a good spot. Because it was like, we had to pull it after four days. And the readings were just so inaccurate.
Scott Benner 40:55
So it's interesting, because you just said something that I'm fairly certain is, is impossible, that it was like swaying in his body. Like I think sometimes we all just, I'm a big fan of something doesn't work. Just keep going, like, take it off, put another one on and keep going. Like I don't, I guess I don't spend a lot of time wondering what happened because I think the variables are so incredibly many that it would just it's silly, like I finally figured out one problem with Arden right? Like there was this time I kept thinking, while Arden does her homework, her blood sugar gets low. And I was like, that doesn't make any sense. And so I finally realized that Arden was doing her homework on this bench where she would curl up in a ball. And so she kind of pulled her knees up, and or where her scent where her sensor was for her g six, it kind of mimicked a compression low even though she wasn't sitting on it. And so one day, I was just like, Can you put your knees down for a second? And that was interesting. And so so it wasn't in that situation. The sensor was fine. Everything was fine. It was reporting correctly. It just was displacing her interstitial fluid. And and I just like that's what I when you said it's been since he's at school, I'm like, I wonder if he's like, like, and that's as insane as that sounds. I wonder if something's changed about that. Like is he sitting up against something as a body position? Does his his his bookbag blocking his trans like, I never know. The people that real good foods have been real busy adding more options for you. their newest addition the breakfast sandwich comes in bacon or sausage. Of course, you can always get the five inch chicken crust pizzas that come in personal supreme pepperoni and three cheese. There's the seven inch chicken crust pizzas, three cheese supreme and pepperoni again. enchiladas cheese, pork, chicken and beef. Would you like a mixed case of enchiladas? You can do that too. Now what about the poppers? Bacon and cheddar, jalapeno and white cheddar. artichoke and cheese pepperoni and mozzarella. Would you like it mixed case a poppers you can get that to real good poppers mixed case for pepperoni and for jalapeno that's eight poppers. Eight pops. Now of course the cauliflower crust pizza is everyone's favorite. Comes in cauliflower, vegetable, pepperoni, Margarita, and cheese. And you guessed it a mixed case. Looks like there's some pepperoni snack bites here I haven't seen before that must be new. So if you're looking for so if you're looking for high protein, low carbohydrate, so if you're looking for high protein, low carb options, real good foods is a really good place to start. All you got to do is go to real good foods calm. All you have to do is go to real good foods calm and at checkout, use the offer code juice box to save 20% That's amazing. If you ordered a million dollars worth of real good foods. Watch this. Okay, Siri, what's 20% of a million? It's 200,000 Oh, my God, you could save $200,000 on your next order real good foods calm by using the offer code juice box. For a more normal perspective, you'd save $20 off of 100
Unknown Speaker 44:09
Yeah, no, I
Alison 44:10
will text him like we at least now that you know he does. He's um, we had spent the summer using summer camps to have a lot of data to show his endocrinologist that he could self care. And, and since third grade, like he's only seen the nurse once and it was because I had to replace this pod. So he does everything in the classroom. So also, you'll see that like I'll see like a real funky like, drop and I'll be like, I'll text him and he has an Apple Watch and I'll be like, Okay,
Unknown Speaker 44:32
what did you just do?
Alison 44:34
Did you move Are you laying on the beanbag chairs? Because exactly that kind of thing. I'm like is typically it this G sucks. It's like you know like right now, if I was still on the g4 I would be like a she fours broken. It's too steady. But I know the G six. This number is accurate. We're just having he's either got scar tissue. Something's going on. I know I have to do a pod change tonight. I really want to try and get this one to last until tonight.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
We'll make it work.
Scott Benner 45:00
Yeah, no, I listen. I think that I think the technology is stunning. I think it gets better and better every time. But I think you still have to remember you're taking something made of plastic and metal and taping it to yourself. And then and then it sticks under your skin. And it's not the movies. You know what I mean? Like, it's just this, this stuff works incredibly well, as well as it can work with the technology that they have right now.
Unknown Speaker 45:25
I'm grateful for Oh, I
Scott Benner 45:26
don't think you I don't think you aren't. I just it's, it's tough because I do like having honest conversation like this at the same time. What I would want somebody to believe when this is over is that nothing you have said would ever have stopped me from using the stuff that I use, like it's such right over and above such an amazing accomplishment in you know, in people's lives. It's just me, you've you go back and listen to these other episodes with older people. You know, there are people boiling their own urine to test their blood sugar. There's people you know, getting a drop of blood on their finger the size of their finger to test their blood sugar. There's, you know, the people who used to use meters that probably didn't really even work that well.
Alison 46:10
Yeah, my husband stepmother has type one. And she was diagnosed in 11. And she's in her 60s now. And she has said, Now she's talking to get a dexcom because she's she's always done everything with injections. She mostly takes Lantus. She's like, but she goes, I see the what is done for Johnny. And I want that for me.
Scott Benner 46:26
It's amazing. Yeah, no, it's it's really amazing. So anyway, I just think there's a there's a line between understanding the limitations of the technology and understanding those limitations don't mean that it's not absolutely the most amazing thing in the world.
Alison 46:42
I mean, don't run with these, these are such little quirks. And when their quirks we just kind of go like I agree with you, like we just kind of we pull it and go let's get on to a new one, because we want to get back to keeping him healthy. And like I said, I mean, the last seven months have just been a whole change for us. It's a nice,
Scott Benner 46:58
it's very, it's who you are. It's funny when because when you're talking, you know about things not going well and everything if you will give me if you'll help me before the before the pump, in the CGM, anything when you said things weren't going well, you already kind of know what you were doing. What was your agency? And what was the range of agency back then
Alison 47:15
we were typically keeping around. It was about 6.8. But I think the problem was is that the high highs and the low lows were offsetting each other.
Scott Benner 47:22
Okay. Okay. So that's what I want to understand because your numbers not awkwardly high. And yet you were so so what was happening is he was riding high a lot and then riding low a lot. And then that average was getting thrown off in the air one. Yeah, I'd
Alison 47:35
like to be the waitress and we would throw we would throw you know, we would throw stuff you know, high would get going and our high alarm. I mean, I my high alarm at night wasn't we set it to 20. Which, and because I was like, oh, as long as he's 180 or heal at night. That's perfect. It was interesting that a year ago, he was out of 6.8. And I changed. I decided on my own I was like, yeah, let me change my high alarm at night to 180 and be in the three months after that he dropped down to 6.4.
Unknown Speaker 48:01
Yeah, so so
Alison 48:02
I think like it was kind of like we It was one of our first signs of like, maybe that was it. But we couldn't, it was hard to catch. We just you know, we would you know we would do our we were very devoutly to the to the carb county and we weren't too much into like we knew french fries had a kick later. Other feuds hard to say. But I think we would overcorrect. So then he'd get low. And then you'd give the pilot give a little too much to counter the low just bounced up
Scott Benner 48:29
and down from there. Yeah, that's why the roller coaster episode made you upset. Because you realize, Oh, that's what we're doing.
Unknown Speaker 48:35
Yeah, exactly. But it also made me realize I had to get off it. Right.
Scott Benner 48:39
Right. No, I it's I think listening to you is really interesting because it just because it it's hard to put into words really, but I'm really enjoying listening to you explain how you were feeling and what was going on? Because you were so close. Like we know when you create a low by over bolusing you weren't you probably weren't off by that much. You know, like when I talk about Pre-Bolus thing, you know, usually talk about like tug of war, right? Like trying to maintain this like tug of war that nobody wins. And I somebody asked me the other day about, I don't understand. I was explaining to them like I like to see Arden's blood sugar, lower and and coming down as the food starts working. Like I really like the insulin to be sort of in the power position when when the struggle starts. And I found myself explaining like a timeline. I'm like, imagine this long timeline, and I stood up, and I was like, so I'm gonna walk along the timeline, and I'm time moving. And I took one hand and I was like, This is the insulin that took the other hand, this is the carbs. And I just started pulling down with the insulin. And I was like, Nah, see, now see right here now. Now the carbs are going to pull up and I'm like kind of doing that struggle with my hands. But as I'm struggling and they're going back and forth, fighting with each other, I'm walking down the timeline I was like, and then you get to the end and it just stops foods out of your system, the insolence out of your system. And the struggle has been happening. Hopefully it whatever blood sugar you started at, you know, when that struggle started at 70, then you might stay around there for start around 90, you might stay around there. If the insulin doesn't have enough power and the food gets out of hand, that's a spike. And if the insulin gets too far ahead of the food, that's a low and like, and I was doing all this stuff, and I was like, God, this is visual, I didn't realize how visual this could be. You know, like, it really is. And I'm picturing it as you're describing it. It's just, it's crazy that you were so you would see a spike, and how long would that spike last?
Alison 50:32
Oh, you know, at least we had learned going into this that it would take two hours, even a one ad takes two hours to come down. And it was like you and speaking to you about the tug of war is where I could visually see it. That's how you say I would send him to school with a knot in my stomach, because I had no idea where he would be that day. Okay, just a horrible and even that first month when we had thrown everything out and started over every day, he went to school, just a knot in my stomach, and I would just sit there and I would so so watch his numbers, and be like, Okay, can we just get to snack today where you don't get a low? Um, because again, he would have to miss class to go to the health office to deal with anything. Um, and you know, we were Pre-Bolus it by that point, at least at breakfast, but the the school was not set up to have an Pre-Bolus for lunch.
Scott Benner 51:27
Okay. Okay, and was the Pre-Bolus at breakfast working.
Alison 51:31
So we, we learned the hard way, you know, when we got the dex comm we had it. We had an issue when he was finishing pre k before he had the dexcom he had he ate breakfast at that time he burnt out people assumed he went to class. The school calls me because a substitute came in and seen as medical orders and insisted he got fingerprinted before PE and they call me they're like in a panic cuz they're like he's 450. So I raced over to the school, give him some insulin, not knowing this whole tug of war thing. And an hour and 20 minutes later, his teacher carried him into the health office almost passed out. And his blood sugar was 38. Yeah, yeah, that's so we got the Dexcom and we learned every day after breakfast he was going up to 450 so we started
Unknown Speaker 52:15
with shots.
Alison 52:16
Pre-Bolus early, breaking up his breakfast shot, some before the breakfast and some after what was he eating at breakfast? We stay away from cereal. So but he loves I love to bake. So muffins and pancakes and waffles and bagels.
Scott Benner 52:35
You kind of thought back then prior to having a CGM you thought okay, I've put in, I've counted the carbs. I've put in the insulin, I Pre-Bolus that a little bit that means that I have to pre balls or I'll never, you know, do anything. And you were like, Okay, this must be okay. And then finally someone says, hey, look, isn't funny. Like a sub just says, Look, I'm not gonna let this kid go to gym unless he does a finger prick. Because that's in the orders. You find out he's 450 did it just were you shocked by that? Yeah, I
Alison 53:04
mean, I'm fortunate I work from home and I am five, like five seconds from the school. So I you know, I've raced over there in a complete panic. I'm like, 450 Oh, my God. You know, let me give you insulin, we got to get you down. And then you know, I'm an hour, two minutes later, I'm at the gym, and I get a call from like the district nurse who says, Okay, I get attacked, and she's like, he's really low. And that's all the tech says, yeah. And I call and I'm like, What do you mean? And she's like, well, he's 30. I'm like,
Unknown Speaker 53:30
What do you mean? He's
Alison 53:31
38? Like, how did that happen? So that was like our final point. We're like, Alright, let's get this deck calm.
Unknown Speaker 53:37
We can you know, we've
Alison 53:37
gone a year without it. We don't know how often this is happening.
Scott Benner 53:41
Let me jump in and say that I think a lot of people might be inclined to think Well, yeah, he went to gym and that's why his blood sugar went down. His blood sugar didn't go down that far. Because the gym, his blood sugar went down because you gave him more insulin again.
Alison 53:52
Exactly. Well, and the problem was that he probably was on his way down, but we can see it. And then what I gave him just plummeted more. Okay,
Scott Benner 54:00
now fast forward to today. You have you have different technology have a different mindset. How does that how does that breakfast go now?
Alison 54:08
So now we do a Pre-Bolus 20 minutes ahead, we give him 85% at 20 minutes, and then he gets the rest over an hour. Okay. And he can eat, we still have to try to stay away from cereals and, and just in general and he eats. Otherwise, whatever else he wants. And he peaks at 130 maybe 140. We'll change the meal. He has PE at 830 in the morning, two days a week. So those days we'll do more of a eggs bacon kind of thing. Okay, to give them the extra fat because they play hard at PE
Scott Benner 54:41
Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. I mean, that's in such a short amount of time you went from someone's carrying your half lifeless kid to the office to being able to you know properly bolus for a waffle or a pancake or something like that and send your kid off to school and not see a bunch of over 130. That's wrong. I'm not,
Alison 55:00
I don't have the pit in my stomach anymore. And I don't check his numbers. And last, like I have my range now set like at 95 to 130, just so I can catch anything that's about to get out of control. Right. But otherwise, like, I think the other day I didn't hadn't checked my phone for like an hour. And I was surprised.
Scott Benner 55:17
Yeah, I really don't look often at all, I actually look more while I'm recording the podcast because it's on my, I have it on my computer screen so I can kind of see it. And I think sometimes it helps the conversation. So but for most of the day, if Arden's and rate in the range that we choose, I don't spend any time checking on it like that, just that doesn't exist for me.
Alison 55:39
Yeah, and like, and I have mine up right now, because I'm like, he's finally 131. And I want him down more, and I just can't he something's just going on want today. Right?
Scott Benner 55:49
Right. That's really cool. Like, I mean, it was just such a it's such a change, you know, I mean, like you described like confusion and and a loss for what to do. down to like, I can do pancakes now. Like, that's really that's really cool. What What was the what, what do you think the main? Do you think it's the technology? Do you think if you got the technology before you met me, you would have figured it out on your own?
Unknown Speaker 56:17
I feel like
Alison 56:20
I think you helped give us the push. And I think you helped give us bringing the whole thing full circle. The equipment helped. But even you know, by the time I have spoken to you, you're keeping on the pump, eight months, and we still weren't getting it quite right. Yeah, we were still we were doing 10 days old. And you know, we were, I hadn't even read, you know, sugar surfing, I had started to read it. I bought it like two years before what sometime before, but
Unknown Speaker 56:47
it sat on my Kindle.
Alison 56:48
So I was like, whatever this is, I don't know what this is. Um, and we were just, I think all of us, Johnny, myself, my husband, we were just at a point where we're like, okay, we knew we also had to be able to prove to the school that he had to do it on his own. And so something significant had to change to get there.
Scott Benner 57:07
Right, right. It's I find the highs, the highs that you had prior to kind of pulling together and understanding better I find your scarier than a stable. Yeah, like I would like if Arden's a one see for a very long time was in the 80s. But what it just meant was her budget was, you know, around 200 or so all the time. But we didn't have like scary lows, but you were having 450s and, and, and 50s and three hundreds and fit like that. He must have felt like and I don't want to make you upset, obviously. But well, but he felt crappy, like mostly. Yeah,
Alison 57:42
I get I get the calls that it was really bad. It was a first grade because PE was right before, um, they get out early on on Wednesdays here at like 1240. And he had pe 1130. And I'd get a call from the nurse at 12 o'clock. They're like, he has a raging headache. And he feels like he's gonna throw up. Come get it. Yeah, we had to finally pull him from PE on those days and have him sit
Scott Benner 58:02
was bouncing around, right?
Alison 58:03
It was bouncing all over the place. He would you know, and now just I mean, he, he just he lights up. He's like, Mom, I don't miss school. I might, you know, because it also used to be the nurse would call over the intercom the whole class would get interrupted with the phone call that he had to go do something. He doesn't like the attention on it.
Scott Benner 58:22
Yeah. Well, Johnny report to the office. That's exactly sucks. And by the way, the name of this episode, in case you're wondering, I love and so, but But no, I mean, just so many little things that add up to one big thing have changed for you know, it's really I'm just very happy for you.
Alison 58:43
And so and so, you know, for us that like I'm the near tears because I'm so I'm so proud of him. But I mean, you know, he had 5.981 C and APR and he was 5.5 a week ago. That's his doctor called up and he's like, you kind of got it. Like, he's like, I don't know what else to say. You guys, you've just figured it out.
Scott Benner 59:02
You should have said it was when you guys yelled at us. We really that really helped Thanks a lot. Well, you know what isn't an interesting situation. And when you're with them a little longer you maybe we could say to them at some point. I'm happy that you see that we got it. But you realize we got it with literally no help from you whatsoever. And here's what actually helped us. Maybe you could tell other people this
Alison 59:23
well, so and I have until lately like I told him I told him about your podcast, we've started to get a little more involved with jdrf. Around here. We're doing the big walk on Sunday. We told we went to a Dodger game event we told them they hadn't heard about it. Like Um, there's a new family in our community who just got diagnosed last week. I told that family cuz I'm like, go here. Just listen to these, like, just listen to him and listen to the people he's speaking to. You're gonna get something from it. It's cool, man. I
Scott Benner 59:49
appreciate that. And I think it just it's it goes back to the idea of community from the beginning. You just need to find somebody I you know, there's nobody really in our life. You know? I'm not kidding. Personally to anybody who has type one, like nobody that lives near me, you know, or anything like that. So my connection to type one is, is through this podcast, the blog and stuff like that as well. And, and it just, it's incredibly helpful. It helps me. You know, there are times I'm going when I'm gonna go to a jdrf event in Cincinnati this weekend, and I'm bringing a ton of these bold with insulin magnets for people's refrigerators. Now I'm bringing them because people are gonna ask me, How do I get the podcast and I don't want to tell everybody, I'm gonna be like, Here, take this stick of you. But the truth is, I have one stuck to my refrigerator. And it's not there because I need a magnet. It's there because I need to look up and remember to, I have to keep being aggressive. I have to keep doing the things that I know work. You know, I can't get thrown off by you something just being out of the ordinary. Like, I'm telling you that three months ago and Arden's insulin needs just skyrocketed. And I thought I was tempted to question what I was doing for a second. And I just stopped and I was like, No, like, it's not I didn't do something wrong, nothing change. For whatever reason, she needs more insulin, who cares? Why doesn't matter why, let me make sure I give her more insulin. So we upped her basal rates, we upped her, you know, you know how much we give at a meal, I was gonna say insulin to carb ratio, I don't even know our insulin to carb ratio. I'm just that I would, I would, you know, evaluate a meal. And instead of saying eight, I'd go over 11. You know, and people might listen to think well, where did that number come from? And what I'm going to tell you is I tried eight the week before, and then it took three more to bring it down. So 11 Next time, you know, and and I just kept pushing, kept pushing. That was pancakes that I mentioned earlier in the podcast that took 23 units. If she eats those pancakes again next week, it's going to be back to the needs from before. Something she was sick. She's growing there was there was a confluence of things going on at the same time that created this need. But we were still actually able to do it. And
Alison 1:02:01
yeah, good and not like, well, like we're seeing like, that's what we did this week. Like for the last three days. Like Monday through Wednesday. This week. Johnny was just for lunch. He started going up for lunch, he would stay Hi, I was like okay, that's it. I just going to increase his Temp Basal two hours before I'm changing his lunch carbs. And not did it yesterday.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:19
Yeah, that just broke the cycle. I'm just
Scott Benner 1:02:20
gonna tell you that. During this period of time, I saw high blood sugars I haven't seen in years. And I still just kept being aggressive with them and still got a 5681 c without lows. So and I'm talking about like, now all of a sudden, you know, usually when I tell you Arden's blood sugar's high in my mind Arden's blood sugar's high, it's 150 to 170. That, to me is high. And I'm usually like, what did I do there? You know, and I like, let me figure out how to fix it for next time. Over 180 maybe I'll see a spike to 200 once in a while, but I can get it back right away. But I'm talking about blood sugars that went to 202 20 and sat for a while, and, and I was pouring insulin on her and nothing was happening. And so still without Lowe's by being aggressive, a one center sex and no and still no, no restrictions on what shade. So in a moment, when she was growing, and needed that food, I was able to give it to her. When you know, you might think that what might happen is you start going out Well, why don't we just do less carby stuff for during this time and everything that she needed that food she was, she went from what she normally eats to eating more. And I think she needed I think she's growing Arden is at the moment, 14 years old. And five, five and a lot by the time someone hears this, by the way, it'll be six months from now. But But and she weighs I think like 120 pounds 18 months ago, Arden was five one and a half and weighed like 90 pounds.
Alison 1:03:50
Yeah, that's like a meat. That's what we're dealing with Johnny. It's like it was one of the things it was a kind of a good thing he got diagnosed because we had realized that before that he'd only gained about like, gosh, like a pound and a half in between for 18 months. Since then he is now I think they told me he's like, just nice, like four foot 10 and he's like 69 pounds like he's the tallest kid in third grade. He knows it's so scary growth spurts tumor were like stamping it like my husband always say keep people with the insulin. Like, let's just tackle this. Yeah, you can't figure it out. You just got to figure out how to go forward.
Scott Benner 1:04:23
Arden went from the 10th percentile for height to the 75th in a year and a half. Yeah, that's just and she needed that she needed that food. She needed to be able to eat unfettered when she was hungry. Yeah. And and it's just I'm just really grateful to be able to do it for
Alison 1:04:38
you. I feel chilly because we don't have restrictions that so he gets to eat what he wants. Like we went to Walt Disney World this summer and he got to have whatever he wanted because we had more confidence that we were going to prevent the spike.
Scott Benner 1:04:52
I'm glad for you. I really am I listen to harden left, um, Halloween was the other night and a couple of her friends came over and they threw to you know, they put their house Seems on. And they went out like 730. And at 730. She's like, I'm gonna go. And that was the first time I thought, well, what's your blood sugar? And she looked and she's like, it's 80. And I said, Okay, I was like, well do like a Temp Basal decrease for like, 50% for an hour. And she's like, okay, and she laughed, and I remember she was walking out thinking, I should have done that, like a half an hour ago, this isn't going to work, you know, and maybe a half an hour later, I got a little beeping and Arden's like drifting under 70. And I was like, hey, reach into that bag and eat some candy. So and I'm not with her, she's off wandering around with friends. And a couple minutes later, the blood sugar's 260. And I texted her back, I was like, what you eat. And she, I forget what it was, but it was something with chocolate on my Hey, less chocolate, more sugar. And, you know, like, like more straight sugar. I'm like, look for something shiny that looks like you know, plastic like that kind of that kind of sugar. And so she had something else. And her blood sugar kind of like leveled up, but then it hung. And I said, and she texted me and she was I'm thirsty as like, if you're thirsty, just drink the juice shack with you. So she drank or juice or blood sugar when like back up to like, 85. And he she got home and she was 90. And when she got home, she's like, I'm really hungry. And I was like, okay, maybe she's really hungry. But my in my gut, what I think is her blood sugar is gonna try to go back down again, like her hunger is a lot of times a precursor for her for a blood sugar fall. Like she's, you know, and so I was like, Yeah, great. So she like had a salad. She took a whole bunch of stuff together. And she's eating it and eating and eating. I'm like, she's not really taking that many cars. But look how much she's eating. I didn't give her any insulin for what she had. Even though there were some carbs in it. She didn't just have a salad. She had some other stuff too. And was good. It was a great pleasure. It was like 100 by the time she went to bed. And I was impressed. I was like, great, but it was all just timing. Again, at the end here. I want to say that. I haven't said it enough over the episodes. But when I talked about you have to time the insulin, if you there's a way to do the food that way too. You can time the food too. Like there's you know, people used to call it free food. It's like, hey, what can I eat for free, we can't really eat anything for free. But there are moments where you're, you're almost Pre-Bolus the meal, by mistake, like her walk and her trick or treating was a Pre-Bolus to eat. And as long as she didn't take in too many carbs. Had I given her pasta at that moment. Obviously she would have needed, you know, insulin, but she was having a salad with some crotons a little bit of their stuff. And I'm like this stuff is been Pre-Bolus tardy, not that it's free. You know, but the walking and you know, we use some simple sugars to kind of artificially hold her blood sugar up while she was out. I was like, I think she could do this. That is not something I thought I ever would have been able to have before this podcast.
Alison 1:07:44
Oh, Walt Disney World this summer would have made me so nervous if we weren't like this, because I was thinking with all the walkie and the heat. Like he just made it easier and less nervous
Unknown Speaker 1:07:55
to let him eat what he wanted.
Scott Benner 1:07:59
Hey, you got him down. Finally.
Unknown Speaker 1:08:01
Finally, he said that under 95. It is 95. He just did a 27 point drop. So he must have played hard at recess today.
Scott Benner 1:08:09
It's really cool. I just I can't tell you how happy I am for you when or how much I appreciate you coming on the podcast. And speaking about all this. I really do. Appreciate your time. And please thank your husband too, for helping set up with the headphones and stuff earlier.
Alison 1:08:25
Again, but yeah, just thank you for what you're doing. Because like I said, and thank you for taking the time that day to talk to me because I don't think we'd be where we weren't. If I had not been able to actually talk to you.
Scott Benner 1:08:34
I am just sorry that I didn't realize that you were you until halfway into this apology. As you said it, I was like don't bring it up. It makes you sound like an idiot. And and I thought no, let me be honest with you. First of all, thank you very, very much. I genuinely think that people just need help. Like they, it's, it's too difficult to be put into a situation like this with no tools, no ideas, not even a roadmap and to be told by somebody, hey, here's a bag and needles you figure this out. And then we'll let you do better after that. I don't even understand what that means. Like why would you be like putting a four year old four year old in a car and be like drive down the street. And when they crash 10 feet into it opening the door and yelling, you're a terrible driver, you know, like, like, it just can't put me in a situation where I have no ability to succeed. And give me the pressure of the health of my child or myself on top of all that and and just expect anything. So yeah, I don't think I did anything except put things into context for you.
Alison 1:09:36
I think you just you opened her eyes. You got us thinking down the right path. We had to do the work. We had to figure it out. We had to figure out what worked for him. But you just gave us the direction. Sure. Well,
Scott Benner 1:09:49
I was glad to have it to give to you. That's that's really absolutely I thank you so much and thank California for me while you're out there.
Unknown Speaker 1:09:55
I will
Scott Benner 1:09:56
really bump up my download numbers. I appreciate that. Don't forget dance. For diabetes.com for your chance to have a private conversation with me, of course on the pod comm forward slash juice box to get a pod experience kit absolutely free with no obligation sent to your home dexcom.com forward slash juice box so you can tackle waffles and to save 20% on your entire order real good foods comm use the offer code juice box. And please accept my thanks for your support of the sponsors because obviously, they allow the show to stay free and available to you every week. So I thank you for checking them out. And guess what I have come in next week, the next installment of diabetes pro tips with CDE Jenny Smith, get excited. And if you haven't listened to the first six, now is the time to go back. It's a series they connect. You're gonna want to hear them. Sure. You'll see one of them's like, Oh, it's about MDI, I'm not MDI, but they all connect, you need to see them you wouldn't have skipped two episodes a lot back in the 2000s. He would you know, then you wouldn't have known anything, like a monster full of smoke would have come through and you would have been like, What in God's name is that thing? And you know why he didn't know because you skip the MDI episode. Thanks again for listening, guys. Hey, and thanks for the great reviews on iTunes. I'll talk to you soon.
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#222 Ignorance is Wedded Bliss
Not borrowed, definitely blue…
Maggie was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes close to her wedding date.
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+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Episode 222 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by Omni pod Dexcom and dancing for diabetes, you can go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box, dancing the number four diabetes.com or dexcom.com forward slash juice box to find out more about the sponsors. And if you can't remember those links, don't worry. I've included them at Juicebox podcast.com. And in the show notes of your podcast
Unknown Speaker 0:27
app.
Scott Benner 0:31
Today's guest is Maggie, and I'm going to tell you something she really delivered. I don't really know another way to say it. And she really came forward with good solid clear information. She knew what she wanted to say. And she said it. Please remember that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise and to always consult a physician before making changes to your medical plan for becoming bold with insulin. If somehow you haven't had enough of me on this podcast and like to come out and you'd like to come out and see me live, I will be at touched by type one on May 18 in Orlando, Florida. And I'm speaking at the jdrf type one nation event in Kansas on November 16. If you'd like me to come to your event, just go to Juicebox podcast.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page hit contact send me a note.
Maggie 1:26
I don't know if this is ironic or not, but like going low at the moment.
Scott Benner 1:31
Well, we should definitely take care of that. How low Are you getting?
Maggie 1:34
The dexa saying that I'm 77 with a diagonal down right now and I just took a shower. So I'm guessing that it's probably just like a little bit of Aftershock from the shower.
Scott Benner 1:49
When do you start feeling low?
Unknown Speaker 1:51
I usually feel it
Maggie 1:52
out like 55 that's when I can really feel it where I feel like Okay, it's time to definitely do something right now. I don't know if this makes me like a controversial diabetic or not. But I don't mind sitting at 70 if I'm stable, I keep a close eye on it and stuff and make sure that I don't fall anymore or, but I definitely try to stay in a good range as much as possible. I'm not a person that gets scared at, like, ad or anything like that.
Scott Benner 2:27
That makes me think of two things. First of all, you've very likely already named the episode controversal diabetic. And secondly, when you say when you say a good range, like what's the range you're shooting for?
Unknown Speaker 2:44
Um, yeah,
Maggie 2:46
I guess saying the word good is like kind of controversial as well, like, good and bad are trigger words, especially the diabetic sometimes. But the range that I try to stay in, for the majority of the day is between 80 and 120.
Scott Benner 3:03
That's, that's it. That's I reshoot we shoot for 7120 Yeah. And then and Arden's Dexcom is set at 70 and 130. So I find out before she finds out, just just so we can I can start thinking about it before it comes up. Please don't forget to go to dancing for diabetes.com sometime today, just you know, when you have a moment you're sitting at a computer on your phone, go to dancing the number four diabetes.com
Maggie 3:33
My name is Maggie and I have had diabetes since February of this year. So I'm not even yet I think maybe that's on? Yeah. Interesting. Okay, long.
Unknown Speaker 3:46
What are you Maggie,
Unknown Speaker 3:48
I just turned 26
Scott Benner 3:50
any diabetes or other endocrine issues in your family?
Unknown Speaker 3:55
Um,
Maggie 3:55
so my maternal uncle was diagnosed with type one when he was in his 30s. And that is the only other person endocrinology or there's a little bit of type two diabetes for like, we know that they don't really have anything to do with each other. So I don't usually like
Scott Benner 4:21
to you're on today because you're MDI, right.
Maggie 4:24
Yeah. passionately, on MDI. Well, that
Scott Benner 4:27
also could be the title of the episode passionately. But I wanted to kind of go backwards first to something you alluded to, because I saw something recently that made me feel like this, too. So you said that like, maybe good range could be considered a trigger word. For people with type one and there's a there's a ton of them. We could sit here and list them all. People, you know, some people get very upset if a comic makes a joke about diabetes. Some people don't care. Some people say oh, you can't say test your blood sugar because that sounds like It's a great and some people don't care. Some people don't want to be called diabetic. Some people, like there's a ton of personal preference around how we speak about things, and which is all 100% fine. But I saw something the other day, that threw me off. And I don't know that I've ever said it on the recording before, I will say it to people privately all the time, but I'm going to say it here to you. So there are the community of people with type one diabetes who have an outlet now to share about their diabetes is much bigger in terms of the people, because social media is so much simpler to get started. Now, like if you know, 10 years ago, if you wanted to share with people, you had to design a blog and put it online and it was hard to accomplish. So it you know, but now, if you have an Instagram account, or you know something that you can set up rather quickly, you can can pretty quickly get out into the space and start talking. And so I saw I've seen recently, another rash of another one of those things that we don't say, quote unquote, which is people are either happy to share their agency or very much act like they should never. And and the people that I hear say, Well, I don't share my eight, one c because I don't think it's fair to compare. Those are also sometimes the same people who are telling you, this is the way you should be living your life with diabetes, I find it interesting that they're willing to say do all this stuff that works great. But I won't tell you the results of what I'm doing. And I and I wonder sometimes if that's disingenuous or not, because the only reason I share my daughter's a one z is so that you can listening have some confidence that what I'm telling you, this is how it's resulting for us at least. I mean, you know what I mean? Like, it's, it would be a strange thing, I think, to tell somebody, hey, this is how I eat, and it's really great and everything. But I can't tell you what my results are with my blood sugar. All right, so but and so it you just made me think of that when you said that? Because I don't think there's anything wrong with saying a good range. I mean, is it is it? Would it be wrong to say that if your blood sugar's between 350? And 380? That would be a bad range? Yeah, I
Maggie 7:13
mean, it's, it's so hard to say, because, for me, I guess I get nervous about saying good and bad. Because
Unknown Speaker 7:26
I, I mean,
Maggie 7:29
I haven't had diabetes for very long. I'm very new to this. But, um, but I'm, I'm actually not afraid to say that I think that I'm doing really well. And I think I'm taking really good care of myself. And I'm fortunate that I have like the resources and the support to be so successful. And so sometimes, I guess my hesitation to maybe try not to say good or bad, or whatever, is because I know that not everyone is in the same position that I am. And so I would I my sensitivity is that I, I don't want to make someone feel bad when I say, like, I tried to keep my blood sugar between 80 and 120. And I do it.
Scott Benner 8:19
No, I agree with you and I have that same Listen, you'll hear me stumble over words. Sometimes I don't want to say things that will make somebody feel terrible. That's obviously not my goal. It shouldn't be anyone's goal. And, and at the same time, I think that here's kind of what I think I was thinking about this this morning, as we were getting ready to talk. There are homes that are nearby my house that cost three times what my house cost. And I look at it and sometimes I feel jealous or unaccomplished. You know, my son had a friend growing up, excuse me, and his house was just so much nicer than mine. And when I walked into it, even though I don't think I have a bad house, I used to feel bad about myself. I was like, wow, how were they able to accomplish this, and this is all I was able to do. And I think it's similar, except, that's at least more fine. It's, that's more concrete, there's a person out there earning way more money than I can earn. That's fair enough, but being jealous about that, that maybe is reasonable. But when you see someone walking around with an A one C, and the fives or the sixes or the sevens or whatever, is markedly better than what you have. I don't see how people feel jealous about that or angry I would, that would make me feel hopeful that you don't mean like if I was pulling a seven and a half a one C. And someone came along and said, Hey, I have a 5.4 I would think wow, that's possible. I wonder how that person is accomplishing that. I would like to know those things. I just think it's just I understand the I understand how it can initially make you feel but to me, it's always just seemed hopeful that someone had that a one seat or someone could keep their blood sugar between 80 and 120 for a majority of the time I don't know, like, I think that if you're wasting your time being angry about this stuff, you've you may very well be missing out on a lot of other valuable messages for yourself.
Maggie 10:11
100% with what you're saying? I feel very, I definitely feel that way, as well as being a very, like, healthy person and then having diabetes all of a sudden, and not really knowing why. I I definitely. I mean, I think that I'm still angry about it sometimes. And I can see why other people would, why maybe seeing a lower a one fee would would be
Scott Benner 10:46
some off
Maggie 10:46
discouraging? Yeah, you know, we can see the fridging, especially if, and I think that effort is definitely perceived, like, based on the individual. And so while someone may not be trying hard in my eyes, they may feel like they are trying very hard to like change habits and to not see those results. I know how that feels. And so I guess, maybe, even though I don't necessarily agree with how they feel, I, I, I feel for them. So
Scott Benner 11:24
I felt and I felt that way in the past, too. I just, I just guess what I know, today that I didn't know, back then when I was in that same boat was I was spending a lot of unnecessary time, feeling defeated and angry and hopeless. When it turned out, I just wasn't listening to the right information.
Maggie 11:44
Right. And I, I think also that's just like, that's just like a life that needs to click on in you. And you can't necessarily force that, or you can't predict when it's going to happen. It just one day, it just clicks and you get it and I don't know maybe that some of that frustration comes from it, just not clicking with them yet.
Scott Benner 12:06
100% here and even as you're speaking, what I'm thinking is I'm having a very male reaction to this, like, I just sort of want the, you know, make if you just cut your emotion out of this, you could get to the good part. And it is I don't know if it's fair to call that a male reaction to it is sometimes mine it is, you know, the idea of like, if we could just take the drama out of this for a second, I think we could all see there's a clear path in front of us So, so I get that. And let me finish by saying this, anyone who's out in the space trying to tell people that this is a viable, you know, what I do is a viable way of living with diabetes, I, I would call on you to then show people the results of what it is you're doing. Don't just tell them this is a great thing. And, and like, you know what, if you had a I don't know, if you were gonna invest some of your money. And I was selling to you and I was like, Look, if you invest with me, trust me, it's gonna be great. It's very exciting. Everybody you invest with me is very happy. You're going to love it. And then you said, Okay, well, can you show me your results from last year? I should not. And I don't want to show you that. You just give me all your money. You can't just promise people something. And and, and not show them how it ends, like show me how it ends. You know, maybe it's a, maybe it's a 781 C, maybe it's an eight. You know, if I have if I have a 10 a one C and you have an eight, I'd love to know how you got to an eight. Sure, you know, but don't don't go show me your pretty pictures on Instagram and on Facebook and all the places telling me all the good stuff you're doing and then don't follow through and let people know what it is they're buying. Like so yeah, and buying I obviously don't mean it's actually for sale, but you know, right, trying to get somebody to buy into an idea. Have the courtesy to show them how it ends. That's all so that's obviously something I heard somewhere and I'm not gonna say any more that made me upset. But but so Maggie, we're gonna dive right in here with you. Here's going to be here's where my cynicism jumps right in. You're doing really great with MDI. And then I'm gonna say, but you've only had diabetes for eight months. And isn't it possible? You're still honeymooning? So are you still honeymoon? We're gonna find out in a moment if Maggie's honeymoon is over, but today is a perfect day to begin your union with on the pod. I want you to go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box or click on the links in your show notes or Juicebox podcast.com to get a free, no obligation demo of the Omni pod today. That's right when you go to my link on the pod, we'll send you a peck a pod experience kit and in that kit, you're gonna get a demonstration pod that you can actually wear. I don't worry it doesn't insert the candle or anything like that. It's a demonstration pod. But you will be able to get a feeling for where on your body you'll want to wear the on the pod and how it feels because you're going to have only the half the size that the pod itself is all real. Not a fake pod. It's not a fod. It's not a fake on the pod demo. It's a pack up pod experience kit. Now we've, we've all been to a wedding, you know what happens to the end, you get a kiss. So take a pack from Omni pod, jump into your marriage with the world's greatest and only tubeless insulin pump. Not only will you get a pack to start off your marriage, you're going to get the same amazing insulin pump that Arden has been using. Since she was four years old. 11 years. Go to Miami pod.com forward slash juice box you put in your name, a tiny bit of information. And on the pod, we'll send you a pod experience kit directly to your door. All that's left is to put it on and find out if you like it. Do your Juicebox Podcast listener take the Omni pod tubeless insulin pump to be your wedded insulin pump to have and to hold to Bolus and to bazel in the shower out for as long as you need the untethered freedom of the greatest insulin pump on the planet. Miami pod.com forward slash juice boxes the links in your show notes for Juicebox podcast.com. May your honeymoon with Omni pod never end? Are you still hunting? Well, my
Maggie 16:10
doctor had told me that I am out of my honeymoon. She said that my pancreas is producing like such little insulin that it it's not doing any it's really not doing anything. From what I have seen on the internet and know of other people. My insulin to carb ratio seems pretty on point with people who have had diabetes their whole entire lives. Not that that necessarily has anything to do with honeymooning.
Unknown Speaker 16:43
But
Maggie 16:45
that was kind of how I was gauging that. Myself Plus, I like it. I have probably pushed every button I could with this disease, even in the last eight months where I'm just like, oh, like you can eat that and not not taking insulin for it. Like it's just one thing. But I can't even eat a serving of carrots without my blood sugar, like going up. And so if this is my honeymoon, I am not looking forward to what's coming later. Because
Scott Benner 17:21
Did you ever notice an uptick? Like where it was like, Hey, this is easier, and then all of a sudden it got harder? Was there a time when that happened? Or did you maybe just start closer to where you are now do you think?
Maggie 17:32
No, I think I definitely just started closer to where I am now. I I believe that I was undiagnosed for about 10 months. 10 months. So um, I think that that was probably where I lost out on my honeymoon. And
Scott Benner 17:49
you used it up before you knew you needed it.
Maggie 17:52
Yeah, seriously,
Scott Benner 17:54
was that first 10 months before you knew you had type one? Like, were you having health issues?
Maggie 17:59
Yeah, I was. And I was explaining them away and ignoring them. And looking back on it, it, it was actually really, really hard to to not have access to the things that my body needed or to not be treating it as well as I should have fun. I remember the first diagnosed in February. So I really started seeing symptoms that summer. And I was working. And I said to my boss when you were in your like mid 20s, like 25 because I was I was almost I was about to be 25 I think at the time, and did you ever just get really thirsty? And like, you just felt like you couldn't drink enough. You're just so thirsty. And she just looked at me like, no,
Scott Benner 18:54
that's not a thing that happens. Never.
Unknown Speaker 18:56
Yeah.
Maggie 18:58
And I just thought I was dehydrated. I was like you're dehydrated or you're something your hormones are changing. Like maybe you're going through some hormonal thing or I don't know something that your body needs more water and listen to your body. You need to be drinking more like I was telling myself, like, take better care of yourself drink more water. And at the same time I was eating like a
Unknown Speaker 19:24
probably,
Maggie 19:25
oh, just like two I mean, like two bags of candy a day, probably at that point.
Scott Benner 19:32
So you had that insatiable hunger and the thirst and were you losing weight on top of it. So
Maggie 19:38
I was very slowly losing weight in the beginning I would say just like it was just coming off slowly, very slowly. To the point where I was thinking like, Oh, I was preparing for a wedding. My husband and I got married in January. So we it was leading up to that and so we were working out a little bit I was just like, Oh, it's just, you know, you're just like losing weight from working out. And I felt like I was eating better, even though I was kind of mindlessly eating sugar all day. Because my body was just craving those, like, very simple carbs to keep it going. Yeah. I
Scott Benner 20:22
see. And you say you were diagnosed a month after your wedding?
Maggie 20:25
Yeah, like almost to the day? Wow,
Scott Benner 20:28
that's not the classic wedding gift for a spouse. What were you planning on getting? Oh, did you know? So this is really interesting. When you find out you have type one. Are you by yourself in the doctor's office? Or is your husband with you?
Maggie 20:46
So I, we had actually gone into the doctor's office, because, um, I had, you know, I had continued to have, you know, the classic symptoms going up, and I lost about 40 pounds leading up to our wedding. And then on the day of our wedding, I actually lost my vision. And I had very blurry vision, and I couldn't really see. And, but I didn't say anything to anyone because I was like, maybe they won't let me get married. And I didn't want that. So we put it off, I've kind of put it off. And then my vision came back a little bit. And then and then it came, I lost it even worse. So I finally got put on my husband's health insurance. And we decided to go to the doctor to check out my eyes. And even sitting in the doctor's office, he was asking me some of the symptoms, and I told him the blurry vision. And basically that was it. That was all I wanted to talk about. Because I was not about to complain about losing weight to anyone. And my husband was like, Well, I mean, she she's lost about 40 pounds, too. And I kind of like looked at him like why are you selling me out? Like the doctor?
Scott Benner 21:59
I'm just here for contact buddy. Let's not answer. pounds mean. No, I hear you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 22:08
Um,
Maggie 22:10
so they took a, they took a blood test, or they took a blood sample or whatever. And I remember just freaking out. Like, I do not like needles. I don't want needles on me. I don't want needles in me. No, no, no, I mean, my hands really clammy and white, and I was sweating. And so they took the blood sample. And I was just like, cool. Like, I'm glad that's over. And then we made an appointment to go see an ophthalmologist the next day. So we went home, we had pizza for dinner. And woke up the next morning to a voicemail on my phone that the on call doctor had left at like 1am that my results were in it. My blood sugar was over 700 and that she was like it was the most disturbing phone call I've ever had in my whole entire life. She was like you need to go to the emergency room right away. This is extremely dangerous. Yeah. And she said, I don't know if you're a diabetic or not. But you need to go to the emergency room. And I was like, what the
Unknown Speaker 23:17
EFF? Like, no kidding. Well, I
Maggie 23:19
can't swear on here. Yeah, but if we do lose
Scott Benner 23:23
iTunes in a couple of countries, so but but so otherwise, wouldn't it be fun just to curse about that? Maybe I'll have to just do a different diabetes podcast or be all curse about it. But so when you were talking about I have to say I've, I've sat here and listened to hundreds of people tell me about their diabetes and you described your vision blurriness like it frightened me like that was that was really something you must have had such an overwhelming feeling of I'm not gonna interfere with this wedding today. Because if my my vision goes blurry like that, I'm done. I'm going right to a doctor. So that was that was really that had to have been incredibly frightening. Do you think it ruined the day for you? On some level? Did it was the day not what you expected because of it? Or did your pancreas kick in a little bit and let you
Maggie 24:10
know, it was perfect. The day was perfect. And I'm even looking back on it. I thought many times like, I'm so lucky to be alive. And I'm, I'm very fortunate that it worked out the way that it did and I I am happy that it happened when it happened and that I I was able to enjoy that day without without worrying about it. I think, especially with the diagnosis right before that, I think I think it would have been hard for me to really enjoy it and focus on on the day and what it was truly supposed to be about. So
Scott Benner 24:52
you know, in a way my ignorance was wedded bliss to I've lived Two things together.
Unknown Speaker 25:01
Yeah. That
Scott Benner 25:03
clearly is not going to be the episode title. So I usually don't have six ideas for a title by 25 minutes in, but today I do. So here was I love your story. And I'm really happy you shared it with me. I was asking because then I was gonna ask you a harder question, which was, did you at any point look and think, Wow, this isn't what this guy thought he was getting when we decided to get married. Were you worried about that at all? When you had to tell him you had died? Like when he realized you had type one did that? Where are you on a personal level, like for your relationship? I'm gonna go to my messages for this text combat. The technology for this disease is life changing. And without Dexcom we couldn't manage the way we do. From 10 minutes ago, I've been listening to your podcast for a while now. It got me into buying a Dexcom g sex and I'm loving it. I've been able to avoid hypo and hyper glycaemia with my Dexcom. Thank you. Let's see what this person said. Hmm, this one's about army pod wrong ad. Scrolling, we have Dexcom when we can finally start living a normal life and not being afraid anymore. Thank you Next scrolling. Look at this Dexcom errors were steady throughout the night. I slept like a baby. Next. This person says I'm randomly just clicking onto my square do up ones about when the Pre-Bolus skoolie do. Here's one, we just got Dexcom. Better late than never thank you so much love all the content. So easy to understand. Some of that was about how great the podcast was not just XCOM. but you get the point. These people's results are their own, and yours may vary. But I do know that you're gonna love the share and follow features that are available for iPhone and Android. And you're going to absolutely adore being able to see what direction your blood sugar is moving and how fast it's getting there. The dexcom g six is where we get the data to make decisions about Ardennes management. And I think you're gonna love it. Go to dexcom.com forward slash juice box and get started today. Tell them the Juicebox Podcast Center. When he realized you had type one did that, were you on a personal level like for your relationship?
Maggie 27:31
I'm not really we. I mean, it was truly love at first sight for us. And we have just been. I mean, all the cliches are inseparable since the day that we met and, and we love each other very much. I think that both of us had nervousness that maybe our lives would not be what we had planned them to be because now I have this. But I mean, to two months, three months after my diagnosis, we went to Iceland for a week and Ireland for a week on our honeymoon. And we go backpacking together, we go hiking, I'm super active. And it's just, it's just something to plan for. And so I think that in the beginning, he really, he spent probably the first like, month on the internet searching for your cure, and just obsessively researching, trying to figure out how to fix it until he kind of realized that like, this is just something that we will live with and something that we will take care of.
Scott Benner 28:44
That's sweet. It's very sweet. He sounds like a great guy. I only I just asked because I can't remember if it's out yet or if it's an episode that hasn't gone up yet. But I was speaking with someone at one point who was living with their fiance and who is now married to them. But they didn't know they like they didn't tell the person they had diabetes. It was just too hard for them to to share. And I just didn't know how hard it would be to look at somebody when you were just a month pasture your wedding and say, Hey, you know, this is now something that I have that's not going away. And I didn't know I just didn't know. But I have your answers. Beautiful. I I'm really happy for you that that was your situation. So
Maggie 29:22
yeah, I mean, he was at the hospital with me and he drove me to the ER. And so the whole time. I mean, I remember we were just like sitting in the hospital bed together, like playing cards or something. And just like kind of waiting for answers, not really knowing what was going on. And I I truly felt like we were sitting there just like, I felt like we were kids just kids sitting in this big bed playing games together and somebody comes in and they're like, well, you have diabetes, and the doctor just walked out and we just kind of looked at each other like one Yeah, what is going on?
Scott Benner 30:02
I can tell you that at around your age, my wife and I were having our first baby. And when they brought Cole into the room the first time the nurse came in, and was like, Hey, here's the baby, I'm gonna leave. I had, I didn't just have the thought. I said it out loud to her. I said, Listen, you don't know us, but possibly be breaking a law by leaving that baby here. Like, I'm not 100% confident we can keep this kid alive. I really think that if you took any kind of a medical oath, you might want to hang back and watch us for a while, you know, and it really did make me feel like I was 12. And I think that's what you're talking about. Is that that sort of idea of like, I've never gone through anything like this before in my life. I've never been the adult in one of these situations. And and it's about me, and it is frightening. It really is. Yeah. So when did you find because I heard you say Dexcom. Right. You have a CGM? Yes,
Maggie 30:59
I use the in pen as my pen needle. And Dexcom.
Scott Benner 31:07
Did you find out about impact on the show any chance?
Unknown Speaker 31:09
No, I did not.
Scott Benner 31:10
Come on. You could have just said yes.
Unknown Speaker 31:12
Sorry. No, it's
Unknown Speaker 31:13
fine. Feel free to edit about Yes, I did. Wow, great.
Scott Benner 31:18
No, I would never do that. That's so funny. So you see, you're using in pen, which is this app that you know, they were on the show a few months back. It's an app that goes with their pen, and it gives you a lot of the functionality from an IT that an insulin pump has built with the pen. Oh, the only thing I guess you lack is the ability to manipulate your basal insulin.
Unknown Speaker 31:39
Right? Right. So
Scott Benner 31:40
tell me a little bit about your day with MDI. Because you're you're doing what is your agency? Can I ask?
Maggie 31:46
So my a one c upon my diagnosis was 15.9. And my a one C, three months after that, at the end of May? was 6.4. And I haven't gone I'm due for another a one C, but we just moved from Chicago to Michigan. So I am waiting for an appointment with my new endocrinologist. And, but according to the dexcom clarity, it looks like I'm going to be at about the same place probably like a 6.56
Unknown Speaker 32:23
point,
Maggie 32:25
I would guess. 6.3 to 6.5. Somewhere in there just based off of my average.
Scott Benner 32:31
What is it? Yeah. 128 133. Like in that space? Yeah,
Maggie 32:34
it's somewhere between there. Somewhere around 130 I believe.
Scott Benner 32:43
It's amazing. And you don't? Yeah, absolutely. I am. And so you don't restrict your diet at all. By the way, if I lost 40 pounds, I would have eaten pizza every day, I would have been like, yeah, this is the this is the world giving me the okay to have pizza for dinner every day. Right? That so let me just ask you about a little bit about you're not restricting your diet, obviously. And you're, and you're staying in a really great amazing range with MDI. Can you tell me a little bit about how you?
Maggie 33:13
Yeah, so I I definitely don't feel like I have a restricted diet. But I do eat lower carb, maybe than the average American does. I try to pick options I call them I say that they're foods that are gentle in my blood sugar. So instead of eating like a deep dish pizza, I'll eat like a cauliflower crust pizza or something like that, just to give myself I don't know healthier options to like, when you get older, you can't just eat hohos all day and like Doritos and stuff like that. You have to kind of pick and choose your treats, I guess. So. In the morning, I have quite I show quite a bit of insulin resistance. So I try to eat little to no carbs. And just like a little bit of healthy fat. So something that I would normally eat is like scrambled eggs and some bacon and avocado. And then I've never really been a bread eater. So it's not it's not weird for me to not eat bread in the morning because I've just never been a bread morning person. But like if I'm going to eat a doughnut or something, that would be like a special occasion.
Scott Benner 34:39
And while you don't limit carbs, you don't have a very carb heavy lifestyle.
Maggie 34:45
I wouldn't say that. Yeah, probably but I also don't. I never if I want something myself No. So I don't feel like I'm restricted. I feel like I definitely get to eat whatever I want whenever I want I just plan to pick, I guess, more lower carb or gentle carb meals.
Scott Benner 35:11
So if you get up in the morning said you're a little resistant in the morning, but you stay with I mean eggs and bacon is pretty low. That's fairly low carb. So. So do you end up having to Bolus or to inject just for the eggs and bacon still? Or do you think would you be giving yourself insulin that time in the morning no matter what?
Maggie 35:28
No, I have to give myself insulin that time in the morning no matter what. So say, if I wake up, like say I wake up kind of high, which happens sometimes. So if I wake up like between 140 and 150, or something, if I just like, decided to ignore the Dexcom beeps in the morning, then I would give myself usually, usually I just give myself three units right when I wake up. And though that will bring my blood sugar down very, very, very slow, just like a slow, steady fall. And then, by the time that I'm eating something for breakfast, I might have to bolus like another unit for the protein. I have to Bolus for protein, protein heavy meals, just because they both tend to raise my blood sugar over time.
Scott Benner 36:22
A lot of people talk about needing insulin for protein. It's not just not just you, Arden had a fairly low carb meal last night, but still had. Like there was chicken, you know, a little bit of bread. And there were a lot of steamed vegetables, like a mix of steamed vegetables that she ate. And we I bought a fairly heavy for that meal.
Unknown Speaker 36:43
Like Yeah,
Scott Benner 36:44
like I would have if it was you know, if she took like a half a French bread with or something like that. Anyway, but but still a fair amount of it's and what's the difference between the amount you would give yourself in the morning for eggs and bacon. And the difference and the amount you might give yourself for eggs and bacon in a donut.
Unknown Speaker 37:01
Um,
Maggie 37:01
so if I was going to eat a doughnut, I would Bolus probably. I mean, it depends on where my blood sugar that you know, it's like, kind of a hard question that you're not going through it in the moment. A lot of my management is just feeling how do I feel? What does this number look like? What does this food that I'm eating look like? And how much do I think it's going to take? So if I'm going to have a donut, which is going to be like a thick, cakey old fashioned donut covered in glaze,
Unknown Speaker 37:33
that would be my choice.
Maggie 37:35
I mean, I look at that donut. And I would think I don't know, probably 30 carbs, 40 carbs would be my guest for that. I mean, it's like a good sized donut.
Unknown Speaker 37:46
So
Maggie 37:48
I would Bullis up front for it allow myself to eat the eggs and bacon and then I would probably wait and look and see where my if my blood sugar is falling yet. And I would almost treat it like I would wait for it to fall. But then it also depends on where my blood sugar is, is my blood. Did I wake up at 80? Or did I wake up at 121 30? Like? It really it depends. It's a feeling you have to it's it's a lot of intuition. And like, I hear you say this on the podcast quite a bit. And it is something it's become a mantra to me something that I tell myself when I'm making these decisions is what's my blood sugar? How much do I think this is? What do I know will happen? I've done this before, what do I know will happen? How do I know my blood sugar will react to this in this moment? And? And I just I take it from there? Yeah, I don't know. It's like a non answer. Answer. I feel like but it is. It really is a feeling that I have. And so
Scott Benner 38:58
Maggie, this was in my opinion, the perfect answer. I was thrilled to hear you say that I you know, I was like, wow, that's because you've only been doing it for a certain amount of time. I don't know where else you're getting your diabetes information from if it's all coming from this podcast, or if it's coming from a collection of places or whatever you're doing. So I'm not aware of that. But I'm just thinking about Maggie's doing what I would do, but you're doing it like right away upfront in the first number of months. I think that's really exciting actually.
Maggie 39:26
Yeah, I started in April. I started doing this in April. Um, I mean, I also have to say that I'm yes I'm doing this on MTI because I I enjoy being on MTI. I like the perceived freedom that it gives me of, you know, the depth but I couldn't do it without Dexcom I would not feel this comfortable without Dexcom this, what I do, how I manage this, like anyone on MDI can do what I'm doing with pens. Or with syringes. But could I manage the way that I do without Dexcom? Know
Scott Benner 40:08
what number two? you correct? Do you correct numbers that get away from you? Or you don't just wait them out? I imagine. Oh, no, I
Maggie 40:15
correct right away. And this is where the in pen really comes in, because it's nice to be able to look and see how much insulin I have on board. And to, to look at it and be able to know like, okay, I maybe just missed this bolus, and I didn't time it right. And I look at it and I see where's my blood sugar going? Like, do I think it's going to even out? Do I not what's going to happen? How much insulin Do I have on board? And if I feel like maybe the insulin just hasn't caught up yet? I might wait it out. Otherwise, the minute that I start, like feeling uncomfortable, like, Wow, you really messed this up, like time to bring it back. Trying to reel it back in is like, again, a feeling but um, depends on how much insulin is on board and how high I'm getting. So depending on what I'm eating, whatever, it's just so hard to say.
Scott Benner 41:12
I just, I Arden and I just recorrect really corrected her lunch while you were talking. So Arden's you know, growing a lot, like a lot, a lot. And you know, so if if I would say to give this context, it is October now in 2018, about 12 to 18 months ago, Arden was five one, and she probably weighed about 80 pounds, maybe 85 pounds. And now she's five, five, and she weighs 117 pounds. And so it's you know, she gets her period. Now, it's you know, it's a standard issue period, not the starter period. It's you know, it's, she's growing a lot. And we are actually, Maggie, you're going to be the first person I get to tell about this. So Arden got her a one C on Monday. And it was when we sat down in the office. And I said to the doctor said to me the doctor, I've never seen the doctor, I wouldn't know the doctor, they bit me Actually it's the it's the nurse practitioner. And she says, Where do you think you're at? Because we play that game? And I said, well, the clarity app tells me five, seven. But I can tell you this has been the most difficult three month period since I figured out diabetes like not prior to prior to understanding things the way I do now. That was a disaster. But since I've kind of put these things all together that we talked about on the podcast, this is the this has been the most difficult three months. And I said because her insulin needs are going up significantly for food but not for other things. Right, right. And so you know, I'm seeing two, two spikes a day that are going to about 180 or so and I'm having more trouble getting them back down than normal. And so the you know that that times a little greater and it's just been more of a struggle. Well, I'm basically reteaching myself what it is I do, because Arden's now a different person. She's not the same person, I learned how to do this on basically right, I'm refiguring it out. I said without the without the clarity app, I would tell you if I didn't have if I didn't have that clarity app to tell me where her average blood sugar's were through the last three months. I would guess like a six and a half a one say, but because I have the app, I'm going to tell you the app says five, seven, but I bet you it's gonna be higher. And you know, five minutes later, the nurse came in the room, she puts the piece of paper on the table. And the nurse practitioner looks at the piece of paper and she turns to me and she goes it's five sec's and I was like what was a really hard three months you don't know and and she's looking at me like, like, I'm an idiot. And then she goes you this is the best day one see anyone's gonna have in here all month like what do you mean? I was like I'm telling you it was harder. And so you know, I'm because I'm now refiguring things out. And so just now. Now just now a half an hour ago we did Arden's Bolus for lunch, she did think we did 12 and a half units extended it gave her 50% right away and 50% over a half an hour just so she could get to lunch. And then we caught a diagonal up at 140. After after it went to 110. We caught a diagonal up at 140. And I took me a couple minutes to get a hold of her to Bolus and so I just got her put in three more units. And I stopped the straight up arrow at like 179. So this may end up being too much insulin and if it is, it will be too much insulin an hour or so from now right and then we'll grab it with some juice. Right But I'm just not messing around anymore. Like I'm just you know not that hurry once is obviously terrific. I'm not I'm certainly not saying that. But at the beginning of this year, it was five to, and then at the second test this year with the five, four, and now it's a five, six. So no shame in any of those numbers, obviously, but I am trending in the wrong direction. So I have to make some sort of an adjustment to what I'm doing. And as I thought about it, I realized that when we're catching these spikes at meals right now, I am not as aggressively going after them as I once was. And so I've decided to just be more aggressive about it. You know, so that's, that's what we're doing right now. So she was 120. When she got her insulin, she is 180 right now, and I can see the arrow just went from straight up to diagnose up which means we've caught it, and it's gonna start coming the other way again, but I'm not gonna make the mistake of sitting and waiting like I did these last three months,
Maggie 45:53
right? Yeah, I don't, I don't sit and wait too much. Sometimes if I'm dealing with a food that maybe I'm not familiar with, I might give it a little more wiggle room, then something else. But I've really learned in these last eight, nine months, whatever that the answer is generally more influence.
Scott Benner 46:17
Yeah, thank you. You're like my Luke Skywalker. As you were talking, I was like, this is this is really cool. Like, you really got a lot out of this podcast in a short amount of time. I'm very happy for you. But I'm also pleased to know that it shocked you so much. If I really was a Jedi, I would just put my hand up and make you go to dancing for diabetes.com I guess. But since I can't do that, I'm just gonna ask, won't you go to dancing for diabetes.com to learn more about the organization that helps children living with Type One Diabetes through dance, dancing, the number for diabetes.com. And if you're in the Orlando area, I'll be speaking at their touch by type one event in may check out the website for that information as well.
I do you think you were so available to the information like because it easily could have scared you like is something about your personality? Is that like, what made you so like, Hey, I'm gonna go do things the way no one else is telling me about it.
Maggie 47:28
I just think that it made sense to me. I think, in general, I'm a pretty rational and reasonable person. My husband and I, we say that his name is Frankie, my friend he and I we say that to each other quite a bit like, Oh, well, we're rational and reasonable. So this makes sense to us. like things like that. And I just think that it made sense. Like if your blood sugar is high, use more insulin. I don't I mean, it's a it's a basic, it's a very basic thing. But I, it was interesting that you were saying how your nurse practitioner was saying, Well 5.6, like almost like you shouldn't be complaining about that. Or you shouldn't feel bad about that, or whatever. Because that's the best. That's the best a one c I'll have in here all month. And I wouldn't say that that makes me mad. But it disappoints me, because I had a similar situation with my nurse practitioner when I went in for a visit in July. And she was saying, you know, your agency is really crazy. And the the diabetic educator, nutritionist, she was telling me that she felt like 6.4 was low. That's what she was saying. And so I was like, wait, God, I know, you're wrong. First of all, I'm not going to talk to you anymore. But um, you know, like, you have to you have to find your audience for sure. In this, which can be hard when doctors are limited. But the nurse practitioner was saying, well, you look great. Your numbers look great, everything's great. And I was extremely like, how are you? You know, how are you doing this? How are you managing it, and I just explained to her how I use the insulin on board from the intent. And I also I told her at the time that I was like, I know that I need to Pre-Bolus like, sometimes 45 minutes, I don't have to do this anymore, but at the time I did. I have to Pre-Bolus 45 minutes before I eat something because the insulin isn't affecting my blood sugar until about 30 to 45 minutes into like, if I just was fasting and I took the insulin it takes 45 minutes for it to bring me down. So and I would never have that information without the pen without being able to watch it and see that happen. The entire index combos all like every Together, I would never know how that how that happened or how the insulin affected me if I didn't have that technology. So I was explaining that to her. And how now I know when I have to bolus and so I bolus and so I'm getting successful at bolusing for meals and how just because my blood sugar is going low over time, like it's slowly drifting down, no arrow movement, just as just a steady arrow, that I don't necessarily, when I hit 70, I don't mean to necessarily correct with 15 carbs, because that's gonna spike me up, especially if I'm fasting and I have nothing in my system and, and my insulin is low, like when you and I started this conversation I said to you, you know, my blood sugar is kind of low, it's going low right now. And I was at what 77 with a diagonal down this whole conversation, the juice box isn't even empty. I've been sipping on an honest kids eight carb juice box. And I am sitting very comfortably at 83. So like
Scott Benner 51:10
I said, Oh, I put onto my car and drove her to school today, her blood sugar was 68. And I didn't think twice about that, because her blood sugar this year at school has been drifting up as she leaves her school over the first hour and a half. So I thought oh, 68 or, you know, we'll keep an eye on I told her when she got the car. I was like, keep an eye on this, because we just caught a diagonal up arrow. And what I told her was is we could be bolusing soon, right? And I'm not sure right? So this diagonal up arrow is working 78 levels out. Then all the sudden, back to 63. And I sent her a text and it said, drink a juice. And what I meant to say was drink a half a juice. And I just the dogs were outside and I was like doing like nine things. And so five minutes later, I thought oh no, no, I did not mean and I text her back. Did you drink that juice yet? And she said yes. All right. bolusing unit. I bought this right away. And in that campus right around 135 and drifted to 120 by the time you know, before lunch. But as soon as I as soon as I realized they didn't say half a juice. I was like, that sucks. Like, I wish that would happen. You know, but but it just it was too much. And again, to your point, little juice box, not a lot of carbs. And you know, I knew it was too much as soon as as soon as I realized what I'd said so, but I want you to know, too when I was in that, that the doctor's office, I didn't feel bad about what the doctor was saying. And I wasn't telling her that I felt bad. I was just telling her that this was the most challenging three months that I had had, since whatever it is I understand I understood, and she's not. She's not hard on me. You know, like we don't have those kinds of commerce. So Arden's endo appointments are more like, Hey, how are you? I'm good. Great. How are sites? Look, they're great. You're doing great. Thank you. Bye. Like it like, you know, it's sort of like that. But I do hear too much of what you said earlier from a lot of people that you went into your windows office with a six, four, which by the way, well done, congratulations. And and they're in there telling you No, no, this is too much. Did she think she think you were having lows? And do you have a bunch of crazy lows? Like I'm talking about? Like, are you like sitting in the 60s in the 50s for hours and doing nothing about it? You're not right.
Maggie 53:35
No, not at all. And I mean, it. Like, I guess more to my point is like you and I are lucky because we think this way, and we know that what we're doing is right for us, but someone who's maybe experimenting and doesn't have the same support, or knowledge or understanding or whatever. Like once they get to a place that would be you know, good or comfortable for your eyes. And they hear from their doctor Oh, well, you know, this is too much then they might change that. I mean, there's there's a woman who has reached out to me on instagram because she saw the in she's been using the ink pen and before she got it she was on the internet and she found me on instagram because I tagged it or whatever. And so she asks me questions quite a bit. And so we talked about the intent together and she texted me the other week and she said I'm really struggling right now. I'm I'm having a hard time like I'm binge eating quite a bit and I just can't, I can't stop. And my first thought was, oh, that's okay. Maybe don't call it binge eating. Maybe just say you're eating first of all. Like, it's okay for you to sit down and eat, you're, you're allowed to eat. But I said, Okay, do you want to follow each other on ducks calm and you can, you know, it's sometimes it's nice to have that support, you can see my numbers, I can see your numbers, and maybe we can figure some of this out or we can help you or, you know, whatever. Or maybe if you just want to follow me and see how I'm doing as like encouragement to you that that's fine, too, whatever you want. And so I follow her now. And she spends quite a bit of her day over a 300. And I just said to her, when are you bolusing Are you are you bolusing for everything that you eat, because for the most part, you need Bolus for everything you eat. And she said, My doctor told me to only take insulin at mealtimes.
Unknown Speaker 55:53
It's working out great.
Maggie 55:54
And I just thought like, she's only doing what our doctor told her to do, which is what a lot of us do, we're only doing what the experts are telling us to do. We're not getting the results that we want. And she feels bad not only about eating, but her body probably feels terrible. And because she is like that quite a bit. She, you know, now she's maybe now her body is comfortable being there. I had noticed a few times where her blood sugar started to go down quite a bit, and it got to 150. And then she spiked right back up. And I'm like, okay, she was probably coming down from that high. And she felt uncomfortable. She felt shaky, and she corrected it. And, you know, like, but it's not necessarily her fault, because she's only making decisions based off of the information that was given to her. I think what you're
Scott Benner 56:56
seeing with that person is something that is so classic and happens to most people, which is you get diagnosed and you're scared, you don't know what you're talking about. And someone gives you this basic information. Like when you're low, it's 15 carbs, then you wait 15 minutes, and you're like that stupid thing. And then you know, and they're just giving you like, it's don't die advice. It's you know, it's it's great advice that will keep you standing up and which is good advice. But they it's good advice to keep you alive. It's not good advice to keep you healthy. It's not good advice to keep your blood sugar anywhere near where it's not 300 and making you feel horrible. It's just it's starter advice. And then it doesn't go anywhere. From there. You don't get the next step. Nobody gives you more information. It just, it hits there, then people exactly what you're saying. They do what they're told. And it's gut wrenching because I'm doing what my doctor is telling me. And I'm saying to him, Hey, look, my blood sugar's high. He's going, it's okay, just bolus at meals. And so I'm doing what I'm what I'm being told, but at the same time, I know in my heart This isn't right. And, and then nobody can make that leap. It's difficult to make the leap from the doctor said this, but I know it's not right I need to over I need to consider this for myself and do what I think is right. That's a very difficult leap for most people to make. It's it's for every person who I hear, I get an email from there's like, you know, we got our kids a one c went down a point and a half, like it's like, thanks very much. But then the nurse yelled at me and said the six five was too low. Most people listen to them and then start pushing the one c back up again. It takes a takes a lot of it takes a lot of courage to look at someone and go okay, I hear you, but I'm not gonna listen. And it's it people get caught in that cycle. And then that cycle becomes a whirlwind of psychological torture and physical unpleasantness as far as long term complications, short term complications and not feeling well moment to moment. And then you just you're caught in this tornado, and he can't get out of it most of the time.
Maggie 59:01
Right? And it's just like, for, for us to not, I'm not saying us like you and me, but just for people in general not to acknowledge what a huge mental game diabetes is. It's not just the physical, it's not just the insulin, it's not just the carbs. But you know, it's I got diagnosed on a Thursday and that Saturn earned the week after that. There was the type one nation in Chicago that I went to, I mean, I was like, barely a week diagnosed, wearing my mom's three year old reading glasses because I couldn't see still and I just like, went there with my husband and my mom went with us too, and Carrie was speaking at it. I don't know what her last name is. She's,
Scott Benner 1:00:03
she's Carrie Carrie Sparling.
Maggie 1:00:05
Okay. Yeah, she's the blogger, she's the big blogger. And she said, like it something about, like, you know, it's hard not to look at these numbers and, and if and equate them to how I feel about myself. And I was only a week into it sitting there just like crying in the audience, because I felt like a failure a weekend, I felt like a failure for having diabetes. I felt like a failure for not being able to control my blood sugar. Like, I just felt like, this sucks. And it's hard. And am I ever going to figure it out? Am I ever going to have it figured out? And I just think a lot of people probably feel that way. Still, not just a week into it. And just two weeks into it a year? I think it's probably it's a common feeling and diabetes just takes a huge emotional toll.
Scott Benner 1:01:13
I agree. I couldn't agree with you more. And it's it really is. You make me think about the people who don't ever get to break free from it. They don't find whatever their answer is to get out of that space that you just described. And then that's how they live their whole life. And I'm heartbroken by that thought.
Unknown Speaker 1:01:31
It sucks.
Maggie 1:01:33
I mean, it sucks so hard. And I think a big part of it is just like, and I wish I could swear right now, but just like bad doctors, like doctors who aren't in it for the right reasons, or I don't know why. Why. Why do you want to help? diabetics if you're not interested in finding them real solutions? olace at mealtimes? I don't only eat at mealtimes I eat all day long. Like, I don't know. I mean, it's just crazy. And it's suck.
Scott Benner 1:02:15
That frustration is completely real. And it's one of the main reasons why I do the podcast because it just it's a horrible thing to think that that's what someone's being told that that's the world they get thrown into. And that they very well may never break out of it. Like, you know, you even look at your own situation. If you don't go to that event, and you don't hear Kerry speaking, maybe that pressure would have just overwhelmed you. You don't I mean, like maybe but but maybe hearing her say, I feel like this tour, it's hard not to feel like this. Just giving you a little bit of sameness, you know, and a little bit of connection. In that moment. Probably it probably really helped you at that time.
Maggie 1:02:53
Yeah, I think it definitely gave me just like real to feel the way that I felt. And to be able to accept that it was okay for me to sit in that space for a little bit. And acknowledge that I would probably feel that way, at at different times in my life. Like moving forward with this. I don't know this sounds corny, but this journey or whatever, like, it's, I mean, I'm, I'm not that far into it. I think I definitely am at a good place. I feel successful. I feel good about myself. And I just yeah, I want to I want to help other people, like I want other people to know that it's definitely possible and whether they're on the MDI, because they want to be or because that is what they can afford. Or, or for whatever reason, like it is definitely possible for you to feel successful and manage your sugar and take good care of yourself.
Scott Benner 1:04:08
Oh, absolutely. Yes. I'm glad you came onto set. We're at a an hour already. But I'm thrilled that you came on to talk about that, because it's it's incredibly important. You know, it's, we use a pump. And you know, there's a pump company that sponsors the show, and I 100% believe in it. If you and I got I mean, I would never try to talk you into anything else. But if you asked me to, I certainly would. I'd give you my pitch for pumping. But at the same time, for a myriad of reasons. There are going to be a lot of people who don't pump and they absolutely need to know that this really amazing life exists for them. You know, like you shouldn't think if I don't have a pump, I'm lost, because you're certainly not and you're a great example of that. So I appreciate you sharing that. I appreciate that. Well stories.
Maggie 1:04:56
I'm not anti pump by any means. I'm definitely like Grow, whatever works for you is, you know what you should have and you, I want I like, I want everyone to be able to have access to everything, especially Dexcom. But I mean, I am I am sure that there will be a time in the future when I decide that I'm ready to pump
Scott Benner 1:05:22
out Maggie, you'll listen to the podcast. My, one of my favorite emails is from Michael, who just sent me an email that said, okay, you when I got an iPod? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 1:05:35
amused by that? I mean?
Maggie 1:05:38
Yeah, here's your plug for Omni pod when I'm ready for a pump, it will be Omni pod. I know it will be I know that. That is, is and will be the right choice for me just based on my activity. But for me right now, like, yeah, doing great. And it's, it is hard to go 25 years of your life without having any kind of device on you. And for me, I'm just not there yet. Mentally, I'm not ready for that, to see it. Or to have the reminder, or, you know, I wear a lot of high waisted pants, and I get the best insulin like activity in my stomach. So I wouldn't want to like, I'm so vain, I wouldn't want to go up a pant size and have a saggy butt just to fit my pod. Like,
Unknown Speaker 1:06:27
I see the tight pants my daughter wears with that. Yeah, just to be okay. But
Maggie 1:06:32
I do have time for it, I'm sure.
Scott Benner 1:06:35
But I would never want to talk to you in anything you didn't want to do but I hundred percent understand what you're saying.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:41
Yeah, I'm, I'm,
Maggie 1:06:43
I feel like when the time comes that I'm ready to try and get pregnant. That will be that will be my time when I'm ready. Just to. I feel like I've got good control now. But I will want to be extremely militant, when when that opportunity in that time comes. And I think the Omni pod will be the tool I
Unknown Speaker 1:07:03
use.
Scott Benner 1:07:04
May I want to say one thing before I let you go because I feel like you've tricked me on some level today because you have this Midwestern accent but you a number of times wanted to curse. I think you sound sweeter than you are. Is that true?
Maggie 1:07:17
Oh my god. It's I mean, I have actually had quite a bit of anxiety leading up to this because I say I swear so much. I mean, all the time I like I on Instagram, if I'm like doing a like talking to the phone, like doing a story or whatever. I mean, it is like every other word that's just I lived in Chicago for six years. And, you know, it's like, just like normal for people to say the F word and common conversation or whatever, like to like, joke around or I don't know, I mean, I swear quite a bit. And so this has been many times I was like, well, and I even want to say it right now just like expressing it to you like, well, like if I mean, you're gonna have to use that bleep button a few times with this. So I'm getting pretty good, but I haven't really
Scott Benner 1:08:16
gratulations Maggie,
Unknown Speaker 1:08:16
I have to fast
Scott Benner 1:08:19
said to people privately who listened to the podcast. If you knew me, personally, you'd be amazed that I don't curse on this podcast, you'd be like, God even accomplished that this has been a very good training ground for me because I, I love just an expletive here and there for no particular reason. And I do think sometimes I'm thinking of just two days ago. I'll let you go in a second. But I was driving home talking to Michelle was it Michelle? One of them was a mom. And we were talking about something and I probably just it randomly in the first 10 minutes of our conversation cursed. And there was like a long pause and I was like, Hey, I'm not. We're not on the podcast right now. So you're probably gonna get I'm sorry if this is back a little bit. But no, I just but you don't hear probably and what everyone else who's not in the Midwest hears is that you sound so sweet. Like your accent just and you just you sound like you're You sound like you're 15 almost when you're talking to me, and I know you're not I know you're a grown person. But but it but it just it doesn't. There's an expectation that your accent isn't going to come along with an F bomb. But I feel like if we hang this up and I stop recording, I'm going to hear a completely different Maggie. So yeah,
Maggie 1:09:40
I mean, maybe I Yeah, sometimes there just are words that can really you can substitute for the F word. I just feel like it. It fills me in a way that no other words
Scott Benner 1:09:54
are gonna stop so much for coming on. I really appreciate you sharing your story first Maggie was absolutely terrific. And I really appreciate her coming on the show. I also appreciate that you listened and that you're telling other people about the show. This month is shaping up to be a another record breaking download month for the Juicebox Podcast and I have you to thank. So let me say thank you. Thank you sometime this summer, sometime this summer. I believe we're gonna write it maybe the end of the summer. gonna hit a million downloads total for the show. And we're gonna have to try to think of something to do for that some sort of a giveaway or a contest or something with prizes all figured out. Don't worry. If you're enjoying the podcast, please leave a rating and a review on iTunes. And I'll see you next week. Is it time for more Jenny Smith next week? Let me see this is April this one's gonna go up on April 15. Oh, now what do I do here that excellent supposed to go up on the 23rd third? Nope, sorry. You don't get Jenny Smith for two more weeks. But there's more diabetes pro tips coming? It just gonna have to wait. And I just figured out what the million download giveaway is gonna be. Oh, I can't wait to tell you about it. I'm not gonna do that now. Just gonna make you wait for that too, but I figured it out. least I know what I'm doing. I think you're gonna like this.
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#221 Katie and the Old Man
Katie and Scott have their first conversation…
Katie is my new favorite person. Funny, smart, thoughtful and honest. This is the kind of type 1 diabetes talk we need.
You can always listen to the Juicebox Podcast here but the cool kids use: Apple Podcasts/iOS - Spotify - Amazon Alexa - Google Play/Android - iHeart Radio - Radio Public or their favorite podcast app.
+ Click for EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.
Scott Benner 0:00
Hello, everyone, welcome to Episode 221 of the Juicebox Podcast. Today's show is sponsored by the dexcom g six continuous glucose monitor on the pod the world's only to boost insulin pump dancing for diabetes, and real good foods. We're gonna be talking about them all later in the show. But let me just say this, if you love low carb and yummy, you're gonna love real good foods calm and when you go there, don't forget to use the offer code juice box to save 20% on your entire order. And if you'd like to check out the Omni pod, they'd be happy to send you out an absolutely free no obligation pod experience kit. That's right, it's a demo with a pod that you can try in your own home. We'll also be talking about the Dexcom g six and all the goodness that it brings. And of course dancing for diabetes. I love this organization so much I'm gonna fly down to Florida and speak at their event soon. details about that are coming up in their ad. I'm gonna have trouble describing today's episode because I'm gonna sound like I'm selling it to you when I tell you how much I enjoyed my conversation with Katie. Katie was 14 years old and had diabetes for a year when we recorded this. It's you know, a few months later now, but she was just absolutely spectacular on the show. Honest, open, smart, witty. I'm telling you at the end of this hour, if you don't think yourself, there's no way that girl was 14. And that's the most fun. I'm gonna have listening to a podcast this week. That I don't know what I'm talking about. But I tell you right now, I'm willing to bet. Forget it bet. I'm gonna offer you a money back guarantee on this episode. If you don't love it, you get your money back. Please don't forget that nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice, medical or otherwise. And to always consult a physician before becoming bold with insulin, or making any changes to your medical plan. Let me take this couple of seconds. I have here to thank you all for the wonderful ratings and reviews that you've left recently on iTunes. Not only do they mean a lot to me personally, but they help the show to be more searchable by people who are looking for Type One Diabetes podcasts. So thank you.
Katie Parks 2:03
My name is Katie parks and I'm 14 years old and I got diagnosed about one year ago.
Scott Benner 2:08
Okay. Katie was diagnosed a year ago. In 2017. Okay, yeah. Do you use any kind of technology?
Katie Parks 2:18
Yeah, I have both an Omnipod Dexcom. Ah,
Unknown Speaker 2:21
perfect. Yeah.
Scott Benner 2:21
So well done.
Unknown Speaker 2:24
They're the best. See that?
Scott Benner 2:27
except we're done. There's no ads in this one. Just listen to Katie. Okay. But no, seriously, how did you? How did you figure out you had type one was it like, did a doctor tell you? Did you get sick or what happened?
Katie Parks 2:39
Um, it was actually pretty crazy. So we were on a camping trip. And my friends were like, let's go on a 12 mile hike.
Unknown Speaker 2:52
And
Scott Benner 2:54
by the way, Katie know, a friend doesn't say to you, let's go for a 12 mile hike.
Katie Parks 3:00
It was up a 14 or two.
Scott Benner 3:03
Means that sounds an incline. Yeah.
Katie Parks 3:04
If it was on a mountain. I would never
Scott Benner 3:07
get that far. Never.
Unknown Speaker 3:09
Never. Yeah. So.
Katie Parks 3:12
And like, before we went on the camping trip, I was feeling pretty crappy. Like, I was thirsty, like, all the time drinking so much water. And you know, like the normal stuff where I'm just like, not excited to do anything and all that. So I was just like, you know what? I'm not going on the hike. It's not happening. And when they thought that was a little weird. Because like, I'm the kind of person who would go on that
Scott Benner 3:40
you normally would have done?
Katie Parks 3:41
Yeah, yeah. And, and so they thought that was kind of weird. But since we were camping, like whenever I had to go to the bathroom, like, we did have like this kind of porta potti thing. But like it was really far away. So I would have to like, there's a river. So we were tubing. So I would have to get out of the tube and walk all the way to the porta potty. Like to go the bathroom and like I was doing it so often.
Scott Benner 4:06
I want everyone who's listening right now to acknowledge that they would have just peed in the river. And seriously, just everyone right now is in their car, they're doing their laundry, they're grocery shopping, and they're thinking, Oh, what a sweet girl I would have paid in the river. Very nice. You know what, there's nothing better than all of the disgustingness of a porta potti with all of the the closeness of a nine mile walk to get to it. So really, really not a good deal. So you're going back and forth back and forth during this trip. You're constantly not up to like doing the things you would normally do. And then your friends left you alone and you smelled like sugar and a bear came after you what happened next?
Katie Parks 4:49
No. Um, so my dad like finally figured out like something's really wrong with me. So he we like we had to drive like two hours. down to like my doctor's office. And they took my took, like took a blood sample and I was high. So, like five or 600? Yeah, yeah.
Scott Benner 5:15
Did they take you right to the hospital? How did they handle that?
Katie Parks 5:18
Yeah, they did they. They drove me right to the hospital, and they got me hooked up to an IV and then yeah, by that time, my mom came down, and we were just, I was only in the hospital for one night. So it wasn't like, instantly bad. But
Scott Benner 5:35
you're in Colorado, right? Yeah. Saw the doctors are high, and they're just very relaxed. Just go home now. It's cool.
Unknown Speaker 5:43
No, Katie?
Katie Parks 5:47
No, thank goodness, they didn't do that. I'm actually up near Denver. And we have this center. It's called the Barbara Davis center. And it's like a, it's a type one diabetes place. And so after I spent a night in the hospital, they sent us up to the Center
Scott Benner 6:08
for your like, your education and stuff like that.
Unknown Speaker 6:09
Yeah, to get okay. Yeah, that's nice. That
Scott Benner 6:12
actually is really kind of cool. So got you out of the hospital quicker, and it got you to more focused. Hey, if you live in the Orlando area, come out to the dancing for diabetes touched by type one event on May 13, you will be able to hear me speak there live about being bold with insulin. Go to dancing for diabetes.com that's dancing the number for diabetes.com. And look for the tab marked events. Just click on touch by type one for everything you need to know. And if you come out, please introduce yourself, I would love to meet you. Let me ask you this question because you're at such an interesting spot because you're 14. But as people are going to hear while you're speaking for the next hour, you're like 75 in your head, you're like an old You're like an old soul. So by the way, loosen up a little bit. And but but no, but but so what I'm saying is, is that you're going to have an interesting recollection of this from a child and kind of an adult perspective. So what was it like, first of all, hearing that, like, what was your understanding? Initially, when they were explaining this to you? Did you really have any perspective on what was being told to you?
Katie Parks 7:21
Well, at the beginning, um, so my grandpa has type two diabetes. So all I knew was that he had to take shots before he ate. And so that was like, all I knew. So we start getting injections. Yeah, yeah. So right away, and I, like I'm not afraid of needles, which thank goodness. So I was like, Okay, I'm prepared. Just give me the shots like, um, but I didn't realize like, all the other stuff. That had to be like, there's so much to it that like you don't even know,
Scott Benner 7:57
like, you just probably felt like, at back then it was probably look at there'll be this regimented thing like, right before I eat, I'll do this thing and everything. You didn't realize everything else that went with it. It's time, which is
Unknown Speaker 8:06
exactly, yeah.
Scott Benner 8:07
How did you figure the rest out?
Katie Parks 8:11
I'm like, What do you mean? Like,
Scott Benner 8:13
when did it start hitting you? When did you go, Wow, I have to count carbs. And I have to wait and like, when did you When did the totality of it come into focus for you?
Katie Parks 8:24
Well, at the hospital, they kind of showed us how to count carbs. And so I was like, Okay, I have to do this now. But then once we went up to the BDC, which is what we call the center. Like they were explaining, like pricking your finger, because I thought that it was just something they did the hospital but like pricking your finger, like the range and like the Lantus and the chemo log and all the, like everything and I'm, I was like, starting to get overwhelmed at the same time of kinda like, just give me the stuff. I'll figure it out. Okay, so
Scott Benner 8:59
you had that app. You had that kind of attitude? How are your parents? Were they holding it together? Were they crying and shifts? What did they do?
Katie Parks 9:07
Um, I never saw either of them cry.
Scott Benner 9:12
Yeah, that's a thing. You'll figure out. When you get older. You go into a different room to cry when you have kids?
Katie Parks 9:15
Yeah, yeah, I know. They definitely did. But my dad was kind of with me. At the beginning, when I was at the hospital, and my friends who were still on the camping trip was saying that my mom was crying. Like when she first heard
Unknown Speaker 9:30
they stayed on the camping trip.
Katie Parks 9:32
No, my mom. My mom was packing up with my sister.
Scott Benner 9:36
I met the friends. Oh, yeah. I agree with what they did. But still the moment it would have been nice. Were you are you live in Colorado? Is that correct? Yeah. Okay, so you so you were on a mountain but you were still within a couple hours here home?
Katie Parks 9:50
Yeah, yeah. And cut. The nice thing was they made me a card. And and they were kind of being like funny. Like like writing funny stuff on the card. And when I got in the hospital, I like, did it understand that they were trying to be funny? Like, I was like, okay, like you think
Scott Benner 10:09
they were like being crappy to you? They were like, like getting picked on what's going on? I just
Katie Parks 10:14
didn't understand like what they were saying. I was like, why are you writing this?
Scott Benner 10:19
Maybe your blood sugar was high and you couldn't understand. That's fine. I can't listen. Plus, they're not you, Katie, you're a special child. You're you're talking to me like you're 93 years old. 47 years old. Something like that. Maybe these are just regular average. 13 year old kids. Do you? What's your schooling situation?
Katie Parks 10:39
Um, so I'm in high school right
Scott Benner 10:43
now. Okay. public high school private.
Katie Parks 10:47
Yeah. public high school. About 300 kids in my class.
Scott Benner 10:52
So small. Definitely a small school though.
Katie Parks 10:55
No, we have like, 1000 kids in this
Scott Benner 10:59
class. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 11:00
yeah. Class. Yeah. Okay. It's um, yeah.
Scott Benner 11:03
So how do you manage? Mom? You know, don't I don't want to get to that yet. Let me let me slow down a little bit. As things are coming into focus, and you're starting to realize they're slow acting insulin, a long acting insulin, I'm counting carbs. And this pokin thing isn't just one time, it's every day and everything. And it's all kind of coming together. Are you? Is that a summer? Are you diagnosed in the summer? Or is it?
Unknown Speaker 11:26
July? July?
Scott Benner 11:27
So you didn't have to go right back to school.
Unknown Speaker 11:29
Right. I had I had a little bit. And what
Scott Benner 11:31
did you guys do? Did you like pretty much have like diabetes bootcamp at your house where you figured everything out and like, tried to pull together some sort of a plan?
Katie Parks 11:39
So, so what they did is they they taught us like the basics, and they send us home. And they said, Come back. I forgot. It was like, tomorrow, like the next day? And then we'll see how you did. And then we'll, we'll give you like the big rundown. So like talking to like a social worker. Like it's a huge center. So we had like a lot of people we had like a nutritionist and a social worker and like the endo. Yeah.
Scott Benner 12:09
It's almost like one of those bad movies when someone gets a makeover and they go from like, person to person like station to station to station, like, let me I'll cut your hair. I'll do your name. Exactly like that. Let me fix your by the time you come out the other side, you're like, boom, new person. Yeah, exactly. So you popped out the other side. You're like, booth. This sucks.
Unknown Speaker 12:28
And yeah.
Scott Benner 12:30
I can't wait to do all this. Do you know anyone else that has type one?
Katie Parks 12:35
I'm actually funny story. So I got diagnosed on my one of my friend's little sister's birthday. And then about six months, like January of this year, she got diagnosed with Type One Diabetes,
Scott Benner 12:51
so they didn't leave the vacation to support you. But they started getting diabetes to support nicer than leaving the vacation. That well that's that's odd, like so you genuinely diagnosed on her birthday. And then a year later, she got it?
Katie Parks 13:08
Yeah, exactly. And she also got diagnosed on another one of my friend's birthday.
Scott Benner 13:14
Must be them. So I'm sorry, I can't curse that kidneys be freaking out.
Unknown Speaker 13:20
I'm pretty sure he is. He's got to be like, I've
Scott Benner 13:23
got one year to like, get diabetes. Oh my God, if that kid gets diabetes, you have to give me his name. I want to have him on the podcast. And also it's possible you live in a magical place. But but like backwards magic.
Katie Parks 13:36
And magic.
Scott Benner 13:37
Maybe you're more right. Maybe it's a curse. But that's, I'm telling you if I'm that kid, I'm like, wait a minute. No, no. What are we passing this around or something? That's that I'd stop having a birthday if I was.
Unknown Speaker 13:50
Well, that's great. So
Scott Benner 13:51
how are you making out? Like, I mean, how do you? How do your days go? Generally? Do you know what I just did? Yesterday, I had to cut my lawn. I feel like you know what that means? Summer is coming. And you want to be ready, don't you? You'd like to have a nice like pair of shorts on or a little shirt. Maybe you got a nice flat belly. You want to show somebody right? You want to wear like a tippy top. Right? A little someday a halter. What do they call it in the 2000s? He's I'm only coming up with words from 1956 here. Anyway, you're gonna want to wear a little less when it's warm outside and you might want to hide your insulin pump. Well, you want to worry about that with the army pod. Well, you because there's no tubes and there's no controller strapped to you. So you can wear it on the pod pretty much anywhere and no one's going to be able to see it. Not if you don't want them to. But if you want them to see it, go for it. slap it right on and be proud. I don't care how you wear. All I'm telling you is that you have choice when it comes down the pod. You can be discreet, or you can be out and proud. It's up to you. You want to know what else is up to you with your Omni pod. How you take your insulin, maybe you'd like to have a temporary bazel increase or a temporary decrease or an extended bolus. You've heard about those and podcasts, haven't you go back and listen to our bolusing episodes with Jenny Smith, you absolutely have the power to stretch out your bolus over time. Maybe to accommodate Chinese food or pizza, or something gives you a stubborn high leader from fats doesn't matter. It's up to you, you're completely in control. You're in control of where you where your pump, you're in control of whether or not you want people to see your pump. And you're in control of your insulin and how you use it with the on the pod. Now let on the pod send you a pod experience kit. It's absolutely free, and there's no obligation. Go to my omnipod.com forward slash juice box and get going right now. Summer is coming. My omnipod.com forward slash juice box are the links in your show notes, your Juicebox podcast.com. How do your days go generally
Katie Parks 15:47
for school? If I have the only pot, it's pretty easy to just pull it out in the middle of class. Like if I'm like I have my high alert at 140. And like my loler at 70. So it's pretty easy to just like pull it out, like give myself a bolus and then be fine.
Scott Benner 16:06
Right? Kind of bump it around and try to keep it Yeah. And so that's your goal to 140 do you mostly Are you mostly able to kind of keep it there?
Katie Parks 16:15
Yeah, mostly, um, schools been throwing me off a little bit, but I'm getting the hang of it now. So
Scott Benner 16:22
good for you. And do you think you're honeymooning still? Or do you think that that's over?
Katie Parks 16:26
Um, I am actually not sure. So I'm actually I'm part of a study that's trying to see if they can prolong or like, maintain the honeymoon phase.
Scott Benner 16:41
Is that trial net?
Unknown Speaker 16:42
Yeah, yeah.
Scott Benner 16:43
So you don't try it? That's excellent. And so you're so right now? How much do you manage on your own? Is it Are you very in like, do your parents still get involved? Like, do they see your CGM? Like, how? How do you guys do that part?
Katie Parks 16:57
I would say I'm 90% in control. Um, I like to talk. Like, I like to talk with my mom. Like sometimes, like if I needed to change like a basal rate or something, or change my ratio, because I am still doing carb counting.
Scott Benner 17:13
It's really impressive, though, seriously, that that's a that's spectacular. Do you if you don't want to you don't have to? But are you having the outcomes that you're looking for? Is your agency near where you were hoping for? Or is it something you're working on? Where do you how do you see that stuff?
Katie Parks 17:30
Well, I'm actually just how long ago was it just like a few weeks ago, we had my agency appointment. And my agency before this appointment was 6.9. And that was around when I started listening to the podcast, and then I had like the whole summer to kind of like, like, get like, get down on it like you're listening in.
Unknown Speaker 17:53
I understand.
Katie Parks 17:54
Yeah, yeah. And so this most recent agency appointment, my agency was 5.8 Yo, oh
Scott Benner 18:03
my god. Congratulations. Yes. Crazy. Good. You, I think now all those people before who were like I would pee in the river now they're like, That kid is doing way better than me. But be happy for listen to everybody. I mean, this I've been thinking about this a lot lately. When you hear somebody say one C or you see their their graphs, and they're better than yours. That's that's just a reason to be hopeful. You should see you should see what's happening to Katie and go Wow, so that's possible. I can do that. So let's tell people a little bit how you do it. You don't eat any food. Right? You stay. You're staying alive on dust. Exactly. Yep. found on the floor. Yeah, exactly. Flintstones, chewable vitamin. Nothing else for the rest.
Katie Parks 18:43
No. Yeah, I'm eating. Probably like a normal person. Like, yeah, would you if I had, well, I don't normally have a doughnut for breakfast. But my
Scott Benner 18:57
apologize for the donut.
Katie Parks 19:00
My grandparents are here. So they, they they bring doughnuts and like treats for like breakfast, which is amazing. So I had a doughnut this morning.
Scott Benner 19:08
Cool. And you were able to keep it from spiking too much.
Katie Parks 19:11
Yeah, my lines actually, like perfect.
Scott Benner 19:15
This this is a good moment for you and a better one for me because I'm very excited for you. So okay, so I'm going to try not to be too excited. So you had it. So Katie, who is 14 and is taking care of her own diabetes 90% ate a doughnut for breakfast without a spike. And your a onesies? What was it again? five, eight.
Unknown Speaker 19:31
I play it. Yeah, cheese as
Scott Benner 19:33
well done. Arden just got hers three days ago and she was five, six, and we'll pass on your excitement. It's funny because this was the toughest three months that we had had in a while. And I still, you know, had I not had the clarity app with Dexcom. If somebody would have said to me, what do you think Arden say once he's going to be for this, you know, this snapshot. I would So I would have thought like six and a half, for sure.
Katie Parks 20:02
Yeah, I use the clarity app as well. And it's amazing. Like, the information it tells you is really cool. I know. So, so useful.
Scott Benner 20:09
Yeah. So because I had the app, I kind of knew where her average blood sugar was, and when where I thought are able to come in, I guess that five, seven and ended up being five, six. But it's climbed. You know, please, I don't want anybody mad at me. It could climb steadily from five to 254 to five, six this year over the last three, the three quarters. And I just realized, like, you know, she's growing and she's, you know, you're probably very similar age like Arden, 14 and in July.
Katie Parks 20:38
I was in May. Okay, so,
Unknown Speaker 20:41
so Oh, my God, why is this happening? Katie?
Unknown Speaker 20:43
No, no, I
Scott Benner 20:45
just bumped my foot on the floor. It's not it's not the end of the world. Everyone relax, it's fine. Basically, you can lay back down, it's okay, buddy. I genuinely just picked my foot up and tap it on the floor. And the dogs like, this is it.
Katie Parks 21:00
My dog used to be like that, too.
Scott Benner 21:03
He's like, he's like over 10 years old. He knows nothing's happening. But anyway, so um, so Arden, you know, just started getting your period this year, I'm assuming you're somewhere in that space as well. And, and things started getting a little more difficult. And we're, we're just I'm starting to realize that, you know, the good I was at diabetes, last year was almost like it was on a different person. Getting I mean, like, so now I'm adjusting on to who Arden is now. Because she's made a pretty big shift. She's grown a lot. She's, you know, she's a lady now. And she's, you know, her life has changed and I'm changing along with it, we're getting, you know, we still see a couple spikes a day. You know, sometimes 151 80 Today was a not a particularly good spike, it went well over 200 we got it back down as quick as we could. But still a five sec's without without crazy lows. So you're not sure I hope people understand you're not trying to be perfect. You're just trying to, you know, stay where you're trying to stay as frequently as possible. When you get out of bounds. Just get it back. So I want you to tell me a little bit about that. Like when you when you both say you would have given yourself insulin for this doughnut this morning, and it would have gone wrong. And by wrong your I mean, your blood sugar goes up, what would you have done next?
Katie Parks 22:20
I would have like, once it hit 114. Well, it wouldn't depend on the arrow. Like it was if it was 140 with like two arrows I would have given myself see probably about five units you would
Scott Benner 22:36
have just put more you would have your mindset then would have been Wow. More. It's a lot more innocent. Yeah,
Katie Parks 22:40
yeah. Cuz I like I obviously didn't give myself enough. So I need more. And then yeah, and if it if it wasn't, like, if it was, like straight and like the line was a little bit curved, yeah. Like I would have give myself like a little bit more insulin, but if it probably got to come down, so Okay,
Scott Benner 23:01
so that's perfect. Let's just say that's for me for my money. That's you've really got this understood. And now you're kind of freaking me out, because you're the second podcast I've done today. And the person before you was also a newer diagnosed person in the last year or so. And she was talking about the same thing. She's like, I don't know, I just I got to the podcast early on in my diagnosis, what you were saying made sense. And now that's what I do. And she, she's on a very similar path, you she thinks about it, like very similarly. And I was just really blown away, to be perfectly honest. I was like, Wow, I can't believe it affected somebody this quickly. But I think you're a great example of what I'm trying to explain to the larger community, you know, which is that if you get to people early with good information, they don't have to go through a whole process of not understanding and and and you know, blood sugar's all over the place and you know, not feeling well. And, and, and having like psychological problems with feeling like they're failing constantly. Like that doesn't have to happen if you just give them good information up front. So yeah, right. And so it sounds like that's what's happening to you. I'm really interested in as much detail as you can say, what about the things we talked about on the podcast struck you and got you thinking the way you're thinking now,
Katie Parks 24:26
I just remember listening in new talking about how Arden's like parameters, were at 130 and 70, or like 80 or something. And I was like, Whoa, because mine, like my high alarm was at 250. So I wasn't even getting notified. And so like, immediately, I, I closed my, like, I close my range, and like it was magic, like it worked. Like amazingly, like immediately I was doing so much better.
Scott Benner 24:58
Yeah, you know, so I'm gonna go into this deepers somewhere else, but I got this message on Instagram today or the other day. And a person said that they found the podcast and things are going great for them. And that one of the things they did when they lowered their high threshold, which just basically means like they've, they've decided that they're going to react and do something sooner with a blood sugar that's going up, right? She said that a lot of the anxiety she had when she she had alarm anxiety, she's like, every time this thing beeped at me, it made her feel, you know, terrible, like she was upset and disappointed and all this stuff. But she realized, at 130 or 140, it was such a small adjustment to get it back again. But now the alarms Didn't they had the exact opposite effect. Instead of hearing a high alarm and thinking, what did I do wrong? She here's a high alarm now. And she realized that she can do something right, and take care of something quickly and be done with it. She said all her anxiety about the alarms went away. And I never considered it that way. I thought that was really insightful that, you know, there's actually a way to, you know, because I think it's, I think what people do is counterintuitive, they push that high alert, so high up, because they don't want to hear it. But then they realize that when they hear it, it's so late, you're in a mess. It really is I've said this before and you're young, you won't maybe this might not mean much to you. But if you get your electric bill on the first day of the month, and you know, it's due on the 30th day of the month, and you think you might not be able to afford it, not opening it till the 29th doesn't change what the bill says. Right? So you pray, I prefer to open it up and go, Oh, that's more money than I wanted to pay for my electric bill. But at least now I know. And now I can start making plans and making adjustments to myself to get things to where I want it, I think of this very similarly, like in a way that it's it's, it might sound like a good idea to ignore it for three weeks or for three hours, you know, but by the time you get to that fourth hour and your blood sugar's 250, or 300, it really would have been much simpler to do something three hours prior. So
Katie Parks 26:59
yeah, definitely. And now, and now you're like struggling to get down to high, instead of just giving like a little bit and not doing anything,
Scott Benner 27:07
right. And now it's a lot of insulin, and you could end up low later, and you probably likely will end up low later off of that, which will then throw you right on that roller coaster. And you'll be going up and down and up and down forever. And just repeating this anxiety over and over and over again, instead of just getting it somewhere and putting a little more effort into keeping it there. Which do you find it to be a lot of effort to keep your blood sugar and your range?
Katie Parks 27:31
No, definitely not like, yeah, like, especially in school, we're in again, with the Omni pod and the Dexcom. Like, I can just pull out my PDM. And just then I'm done. You know, like it doesn't even, like inhibit my learning or anything.
Scott Benner 27:49
Right. It's quick. I try to tell people that a lot when they're like, Oh, I don't understand, like sugar in contact with Arden all day long. I'm like, no, not in contact with her all day long. Like we talk by text. I'm gonna say three times a day on average. And it takes all of 30 seconds maybe? Yeah, no, and that and that's it. It's like, Hey, little more insulin, little less insulin drink half of this dude. Like, that's pretty much it, you know? And,
Unknown Speaker 28:13
indeed,
Unknown Speaker 28:14
what is the thing? Amazing.
Scott Benner 28:18
He's like, we never record in the afternoon. I'm not prepared for this. And so, but but so like, there's that. And I think your point is that you're coming to that. You can take the PDM out, give yourself some in some put it right away, it happens very quickly. It's pretty private, you can be as private as you want about it. There'll be a day where you'll give yourself insulin from your cell phone. I don't know I don't know when it'll be but it'll there'll be a day when that happens. And everything's just gonna be right there. You'll you won't look like you're doing anything different than, you know, everyone else who's staring at herself. Yeah, definitely, no one's gonna notice that. So how do you feel about that? Do you mind people knowing? Or is it just you just trying to say it doesn't interfere with your education? Or do you are you trying to stay private?
Katie Parks 29:02
I don't mind people knowing it's just kind of, it's a part of me. Like, it's kind of like people knowing like my name. Well, not exactly, but it's just another thing that I'm doing and it's just like, I don't really care if people know or not right now, I
Scott Benner 29:17
think that's an incredibly valuable way to think about this. Honestly, it's, it's a, it's a healthy thing to to just say, look, this is who I am. And these are the things I do and I'm not gonna spend any time hiding this from you. Like, it's just it doesn't make any sense. Plus, you really do end up educating the people around you to the point where even if, even if they're weird in the beginning, I mean, you know, after a certain amount of weeks and days and months that they're gonna get accustomed to it as well. They're gonna see that it's not changing. You know anything about who you are, who they thought you were five minutes before they found out you had diabetes. I hear from Arden's teachers a lot, you know, by the you know, first you know, they have those like parent teacher calm As you go in and, and I'm like, you know, they talk about all the academic stuff, and then I say something like, well, how's the diabetes stuff going? You have no idea how frequently they say I actually have to remind myself that she has diabetes sometimes. Because I just can't like nothing happens. She doesn't go to the nurse. You know, she's, you know, there's, she said that they'd say, the beeping You know, there was beeping sometimes, but I got used to that. So yeah, I think it's just like everything else. You just need a little time with it. And then it becomes very average. You know?
Katie Parks 30:31
Yeah, definitely. Boring, actually. Yeah. It's not all that exciting. It's not that exciting.
Scott Benner 30:37
So So you said you like to climb is or other activities you do?
Katie Parks 30:42
Um, yeah. So I play soccer. Which is a whole nother thing with Temp Basal and stuff. And like figuring out, am I gonna get a journal in this game or not? Or
Scott Benner 30:54
does the elevation affect it? Do you think are you guess you always live in it? So you wouldn't really know?
Katie Parks 30:59
Yeah, yeah. I don't really know. Actually, I don't think I've been outside of Colorado since. Yeah, I haven't been outside of Colorado since I've been diagnosed.
Scott Benner 31:08
Well, I don't know how true or not true this is. But there's a person who contacts me once in a while. They're like, I'm sure that elevation has an effect. And I'm like, okay, so I don't that at all. But anyway, be be if you ever, if you ever come down off the mountain. You understand the the knowledge I have if you're like,
Unknown Speaker 31:28
yeah, yeah.
Scott Benner 31:30
Mountains, and that part's legal. That's really all. And so. Yeah, that's basically what it is. I'm over here thinking I'm dumbing down to Colorado. You're like, that's the whole thing pretty much. But But yeah, so look for that. When you you know, if you ever go to another elevation, if you start seeing a weird changes? That could be it. I guess now, I'll have to try to find out more about that. But, but I think it definitely could be.
Unknown Speaker 31:53
Yeah, it's interesting.
Scott Benner 31:54
Can I ask you a non diabetes question?
Unknown Speaker 31:56
Yeah, of course. Okay. Is it?
Scott Benner 31:59
What is it like to grow up where marijuana is legal?
Katie Parks 32:03
Honestly, I'm not, like really affected by it. We live in a pretty like a pretty nice neighborhood.
Unknown Speaker 32:10
Right? So
Katie Parks 32:12
yeah, we don't have a lot of people using it. It's kind of like a joke
Scott Benner 32:16
that you know, of, by the way, but yeah. I mean, what I was kind of getting at was, once it was legal. Did you notice your friends? Are you are kids a little older? You they're going oh my god, it's time to just go bathe? And we'd now like it. Like, was it like a switch was thrown? And they were like, okay, it's we can go? Because I don't imagine it to be that way. But I'm interested. Did you hear people talking about it and suddenly doing it? No, no, not really. Like the only the only thing it's like,
Katie Parks 32:46
I don't know, like the only thing that's really changed? Yeah, I mean, there's nothing like
Scott Benner 32:52
that. And by the way, like, I don't, I don't think that making it legal would suddenly takes you know, millions of people who were never going to smoke in their life, and all of a sudden have them go on. But do it now. Because I just don't think it works that way. I don't think right.
Unknown Speaker 33:06
Yes. That way.
Scott Benner 33:07
So yeah. It's interesting to hear that from a person your age. So thank you. Yeah. Okay. So let's see, you're managing pretty much on your own. You're a one sees You're good. You're still pretty early on, you're doing okay, at school is a little bit of an adjustment. What are the things? Are there things that you're worried about in the future? Like, what are your concerns wrapped around diabetes? Do you think about it? Like, does it worry you when I imagine you, you're not like, seriously dating at the moment? Do you think about that, right? Like when you get older?
Katie Parks 33:38
I haven't really thought about that. All the only thing I'm really a little bit wary of is burnout. Because like, I'm not, I'm not that far into it. But like, I know, it's gonna happen eventually.
Scott Benner 33:53
Like, do you have an expectation that there's going to be that you're going to wake up and think, Oh, my God, not not diabetes? Not today.
Unknown Speaker 33:59
Right? Yeah, I
Scott Benner 34:00
get that one. Do you for a little while? Yeah. Do you talk to anybody? Are you? I mean, how do you think you would handle that if it happened?
Katie Parks 34:10
Um, I think I think that at first, I wouldn't really tell anyone. But then eventually, I would probably tell like, either my mom or my dad, that I'm struggling with it. And then and they've told me like many times that if you don't want to deal with it, we can deal with it for a little while. Like a break. A little hot. Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Benner 34:35
Maybe that might be a fun thing.
Katie Parks 34:37
Yeah, the thing is, like, the kind of person I am, like, I would just, I don't know if I'd be able to like, let go. I'd be like so. What jishu like, what are you doing? You know, Katie, what
Scott Benner 34:50
kind of a person are you? What did you mean by that?
Katie Parks 34:54
I'm I'm definitely perfectionist, which is kind of hard with this. But also like, I like to be in control.
Scott Benner 35:05
So you know, and this is weird because this is like a parenting moment for me, which I have no business doing with you, but, but I understand the idea of wanting to like having a perfectionist kind of attitude, and that it's probably really made difficult with diabetes, but you realize that every time something doesn't go the way you want it to, it really is just an opportunity for you to figure something out for next time. Like, please don't think of those things as as mistakes or failures or anything like that. I've had a couple of experiences this week with Arden's blood sugar, where I just did something and it did not go nearly the way I expected. And I reminded myself, I use my I was like, I became a listener of the podcast for a second, I just reminded myself, I was like, this is just great information. Just look at this. And what is this telling you? You know, like, what, what happened is it's trying to show me something like what is it? Okay, yeah, that's how I handle I hope you do that. Because because there's no reason to feel defeated, you know,
Katie Parks 36:02
right. And that's what I have to keep reminding myself like, like, you've said many times before, like diabetes is hard. And I have to, yeah, and, like, kinda like you said, like, it's just learning like, oh, that didn't work. What can I do? What can I do to fix it?
Scott Benner 36:21
Yep. It's I wanted this to happen. But that happened next time. I want this to happen. And what did I learn from this? That would help me make that decision the next time? A little closer to what I was hoping for?
Unknown Speaker 36:31
Exactly.
Scott Benner 36:33
I'm here to tell you about some of real good foods, new menu options. They got breakfast covered now, with breakfast sandwiches, sausage, egg and cheddar cheese, and bacon, egg and cheddar cheese. That's right. Low Carb, high protein breakfast sandwiches. I'm looking at the sausage right here. six grams of carbs per serving 18 grams of protein. You know how they do that? The bread on the sandwich made a cauliflower. People are mad geniuses over there real good foods.
Unknown Speaker 37:06
Who would even think of that?
Scott Benner 37:08
Like if I said to you, Hey, you got to replace bread with something you would say cauliflower. No, never. You wouldn't even be able to think of that. That's why we need real good foods. They think of stuff like this. Now listen, they're not just about breakfast sandwiches. They have chicken crust pizza, cauliflower crust, pizza, poppers. Pizza snacks. They got everything even have like shirts and stuff. What is this here? I've never even looked at this link before you would think I would have done that. Yeah, they've got like real good food swag, like backpacks and stretch pants that look like cammo pizza slices. Uh, they got stuff here. You should check it out. Real good foods calm and when you get there and you decide to buy something, I want you to use the offer code juice box. And you know why I want you to use it. Because you're gonna save 20% on your entire order. At real good foods calm with the offer code juice box. Look at this. hear about the pizza low carb high protein gluten free crust made from cauliflower, egg and cheese, a truly low carb high protein pizza without adding grains gluten or fiber fillers. What else do you want? real good. foods.com. use the offer code juice box. Always know your glucose number and where it's headed with the new Jack's comm GS six continuous glucose monitor. Now FDA permitted for treatment decisions with no finger sticks, and no calibrations. I hate reading copy. You know what, let me just tell you this. Instead, you want to know which way your blood sugar is moving and how fast that's going. Trust me if you don't even know that you want to know that. Trust me when I tell you you want to know that? We make decisions about diabetes treatments here based on the feedback we get from the dexcom g sex. I'm going to tell you right now today Today's a great example right? Arden's blood sugar was tough today really stuck in the high 180s that area and we pushed and pushed and pushed I probably used twice as much insulin today as I would on a normal day. And you know why it was comfortable doing that? Why I was able to keep a 180 blood sugar when probably in any normal situation it would have been 300. I mean, why would I know I needed twice as much insulin today, right? Well, I could tell because I could see Arden's blood sugar. I could see it whenever I needed to. Was it moving? Was it not moving, I could be more aggressive with the insulin because of the data I was getting back from the G six. And when that log jam finally broken or blood sugar came back down, I was able to catch that fall smoothly without a danger slow. Again, because of the dex cow I don't need to regenerate copy. You need to know stuff like that. dexcom.com forward slash juicebox with links in your show notes where Juicebox podcast.com Of course, these are all results, and yours may vary, but I've got a good feeling that if you can see your data, you can make good decisions to
diabetes is just too It's variable. And so that to hold yourself accountable for taking variability out of something that has, you know, naturally has variability in it is insane. It. Yeah, it's just it's like if I cut a tree down, and then I stood you next to it, and I was like, right now right now, I put a nice clean cut through it. So it's balanced, but you have to stay here. And if it starts to go, you stop it. Because that's you couldn't do that at the tree, start grow, you know, step back and go, okay, the tree is gonna fall. And yeah, let it go. Now, there's a lot of things we can do to keep it balanced longer. But at some point, you know, the variability is going to maybe get the best of you. And when that happens, you got to be okay with it. And you got to be able to roll with it and get it back as quickly as possible and keep going. You know, ardens ardens, um, graph the other day, I don't have it anymore. I wish I did just look like an upside down. Like the fake Fang, she'd put it in for for Halloween, like, her blood sugar was like 85 9085 9085 985 and 8220, back down to 8599, all the way across, like another 12 hours and boom, did 200 then back down again, it just looked like fangs, like upside down facts. And, and I as I looked at it, I thought, well, that's thanks. But what did I do here? And it turns out, I think there's a misunderstanding between art and AI about when her her lunch starts at school. So we're, we're, I'm looking really looking at our schedule and like, so for most people who, you know, you ever see, I don't know, if you ever see parents online, when it's back to school time, and they've, they've packed like, 9000 like, they could keep 43 kids with diabetes alive for seven days with the stuff they send to school. And, you know, they're writing down like, you know, instructions and having them laminated and, you know, force, forcing the bus driver to go to driver to training, but the bus only drives the kid across the street, like all that. They're all like, it's back to school time. I do none of that. Our back to school PrEP is you probably laugh, but our back to school PrEP is we go to the grocery store, buy a bunch of juice boxes, go to the school and put like three juice boxes in every class. And then that's it. Like we don't, we don't do anything else. You know, and so it's but having back because it's fluidity the whole way. Like, we'll figure out the schedule, I'll figure everything else out. But because we put no pre planning into it whatsoever. I really thought Arden's lunch was at a certain time. And apparently it's like 10 minutes sooner. Juice, you know, and so we're Pre-Bolus seeing it a bad at the wrong time. And so that'll that'll mess you up. Right?
Unknown Speaker 42:41
Yeah, definitely. Right. So
Scott Benner 42:42
we just figured that out. So we're trying to, but it's, it's to show you how kind of relaxed we are about it that no one really quite new, we're just you're just like going along doing our thing. Right, you know, and so, I think that, I think that there can't be anything more important than staying flexible around the whole thing, and just being ready to adjust and make decisions and, and you know, see something happen and then do something. And I think that's really the only thing you can do.
Katie Parks 43:15
Yeah, definitely. It's Yeah. Yeah. So our setup was kind of similar. Like, we definitely, like we talked to the nurse because we haven't had this nurse before. And what she did is for like, the first week, she had me go down to her office, and like, tell her my blood, my carb count, and what I'm bolusing and I was an I don't need to do that. Like, I just need to pull it out, like at the end of the class before lunch, and just give myself a, like a bolus. But um, yeah, so that was kind of really the only prep that we did.
Scott Benner 44:00
And do you do that now? Or as the school year ago? No, no, no.
Katie Parks 44:04
Yeah. After after, after week. I was like, Can I be done? And she's like, let me ask your mom, my mom was like he or she can be done. And so
Scott Benner 44:14
Wow, you're doing really well. Did your friend who was diagnosed? recently? Did they come to you for any kind of advice? Or did how did that go? Did you create like more of a bond over that? Or have you not really spoken about too much?
Katie Parks 44:28
Yeah. So it was her sister is my friend's sister. So we were like we knew each other, but like, we didn't know each other all that well. And now like, we're pretty close, because this is, I mean, it brings people together. I feel like it really does.
Scott Benner 44:44
Yeah, you're 100% right. I know. Arden has friends from you know around the country that she only knows because she has diabetes. Yeah, yeah. And do you have like a Is there like a hand signal or something you do in the hall.
Katie Parks 45:00
No, she she doesn't go to my school yet. Like she's not in the I gotcha. She's
Unknown Speaker 45:04
younger. I see.
Katie Parks 45:05
Yeah, yeah. So, um, so I don't see her. I wish I wish I saw more often, and I will. I think I'm like, tears, I think,
Scott Benner 45:15
oh, she's so she's a couple years younger than you.
Katie Parks 45:17
Yeah, yeah. So I think I'll see her then. And hopefully we can do something cuz, like, she Yeah, she's a little bit younger than me. So she's still working out everything and figuring out. And yeah, I think we're just like, like, I don't mean to brag, but I feel like we're such like a good resource for them.
Scott Benner 45:40
Good. Yeah. Oh, you absolutely are? Of course you are. Yeah. Anybody? Is it just to have any kind of camaraderie around diabetes is an amazing resource for people Plus, you know, you're having, I mean, you really are setting a standard if you you know, people are listening, have to be amazed by what you're doing. I mean, you're inside of a year, you're 14, you're taking care of it on your own. You're a one Caesar terrific. You're, you're you're proving that, that it can be done like this. And, of course, that's an amazing resource, because anything you could tell her would be would be beneficial. You know what I mean? Especially when she's got questions. You know, imagine like, what do you do when you have questions?
Unknown Speaker 46:21
Well,
Katie Parks 46:23
I usually, well, for the study, we've been going up to the BDC, every, like four weeks, like every month, so I usually would just ask them, because there were a bunch of doctors there. I'm
Scott Benner 46:38
sure. favor. So they Yeah.
Katie Parks 46:40
But now we're to the part where I'm don't have to go up as often. So I don't, I don't know yet. I haven't really gotten to that point. Like, I've talked to my parents, but they know about as much as me. If not less
Scott Benner 47:02
than 14 You can find like you can say that about your parents. And it's true. Like I know about as much about this as you do. Do you think do you think that give Actually, I was gonna ask you about other Do you have siblings?
Katie Parks 47:14
I have a little sister. Okay.
Scott Benner 47:16
Is she doing the did she do trialnet as well?
Unknown Speaker 47:20
Yeah. Okay.
Scott Benner 47:21
Did you know if she got back her results? Would that be something they would share with you right now?
Katie Parks 47:25
Um, I think I'm trying to remember. I think they said something that she's not. She doesn't have diabetes, but she's not, like, completely clear, or something like that.
Scott Benner 47:38
She has some of the genetic markers.
Katie Parks 47:40
Yeah. Yeah. But they're not like completely sure. That's interesting.
Scott Benner 47:45
Did they tell her that?
Katie Parks 47:47
I don't know. I think they did. I don't know what maybe you should find out before you let her listen to.
Unknown Speaker 47:55
What's her name? LEAH. Okay. Yeah, we'll surprise.
Unknown Speaker 48:00
You might get it
Unknown Speaker 48:01
diabetes. Well, and
Scott Benner 48:03
probably on somebody's birthday, because that's how we do around here. Yeah, so anyway, so seriously, make sure that she knows this before you get to it. But I think it's I think it's really interesting, because I think Tron that is, it's obviously a pretty personal decision about whether you would want to know if you had genetic markers that would predispose you to type on or not. And I've heard, I've heard conversations on both sides of the argument, I would never want to know, just let me live my life like this until it happens. And then people are like, I absolutely want to know, because if there's something I could do to prolong the, you know, the time it would take to get diagnosed, I would want to do that. Plus time, plus some child that uses all that information for a ton of other good research. It's not just for you, it helps everybody with diabetes. So it's really cool. You did how old is Leah?
Katie Parks 48:49
She's 10. Yeah, she turned
Scott Benner 48:53
10 and 14, you probably don't even talk to her. Right? That's a pretty big
Katie Parks 49:00
we're actually pretty close.
Unknown Speaker 49:02
It's a nice good,
Scott Benner 49:03
I'm gonna give you all it's got nothing to do with her. It's you by the way your parents have done a really good job. I don't know how they keep you in line. If it's like they beat you once in a while. Or what they do is a lot of threats are really sweet. That's excellent. You so seriously, do you know you have good parents? As soon as this podcast is over, I want you to dancing for diabetes, calm that's dancing, the number four diabetes calm, and then go visit them on Facebook and Instagram. I can tell you to do this, this podcast compels you to go to dancing for diabetes.com
Katie Parks 49:39
Yeah, yeah. Um, I mean, like with all of my friends, like we're so we're so tight. And so I don't I don't really know. Like, other parents like all that much. Like Besides, like, the people I hang out with, but I think they're great. Like,
Scott Benner 49:57
they very much.
Katie Parks 49:59
Yeah, I don't really have any Anything to base it off of, but I know that there
Scott Benner 50:02
you've got a limited perspective, let's say they be monsters and you wouldn't know. But my guess that they're not right. Because to give you this kind of Actually, I was gonna say to give you this kind of freedom, maybe they're just like, oh that Katie kid, I don't really want to be bothered with the diaries let her do it. But it doesn't sound like so. So to give you that freedom is really amazing to trust you like that is spectacular, to not give you any weird food feelings about like, you know, don't excuse me, don't eat this don't have a cup. That's all really those are well done decisions. You know what I mean? Because diabetes is a long term thing. And if somebody, you might have less of a shot of being burned out one day, because you're not running around, trying to adhere to all these crazy rules and expectations and, and feeling badly about food and stuff, I'm a big proponent of not causing weird feelings about food. You know, I sometimes I say what Arden had for lunch, and I'm sure some people here that know, like, maybe the kitchen needs something healthy once in a while. She does. But I just think that I just think that there's more value in not being scared of food or seeing food as the enemy because that could really cause a serious eating disorder at you know, earlier in your life or later in your life. He could cause you all kinds of problems with especially with having diabetes and not having diabetes, by the way, you don't want to have an adversarial relationship with them. Right,
Unknown Speaker 51:21
right. Yeah. But okay, so
Scott Benner 51:23
So the reason I asked about your parents is because just the other day at Arden's appointment and it made me feel awkward. We were kind of like finishing up. And the endo, the nurse practitioner looks at art and says, Hey, aren't you have a great dad? And I was like, That's weird. Don't say that. Like, you know, because, first of all, whether I'm a great dad or not, is up to Arden to decide, you know, and secondly, she only knows this about diabetes. Like I could be at home, like forcing her to mined diamonds or something like that. Like, they don't know. The rest of it, right?
Unknown Speaker 51:55
Yeah. Yeah.
Scott Benner 51:56
Look how she is I'm like, Oh, of course, it's because she paints houses overnight. That's how we make extra money. You know, like, like, she's very well worth but but, but it just made me feel awkward for a second. Like, I was grateful for the sentiment that they thought we were doing well, and you know, and we had this involvement, but at the same time, I was like, Hmm, I don't know. Like, isn't that for someone else to decide? Not you. Like, you know, like, I can't run around going. I'm a great dad. Like, that's weird. Yeah, but now I have medical proof of it. So I guess I could get a T shirt if I wanted to at this point.
Katie Parks 52:29
Yeah, my parents. Yeah. They're great. They're just, they're amazing.
Scott Benner 52:33
One of them are you afraid of? You can tell me who's by You went too quickly. My gosh, I hope your mom doesn't listen. Okay. You should have paused sweetie. Just a little bit in between. Which one of you? My mom she's are scared of I'm scared right now. Arjun would have said Kelly too, I think so. We get off lightly being dads, we can just get the joke through things while everybody else is doing the hard stuff. So that's for please do need me to edit that part out. Are you frightened for your life now or Is everything okay? You don't want to get left in that river next year for the trip. Where's Katie? Oh, no. No, no. She's at home. Let's drive back down the mountain and look for just a bandaid on the mountain going. I'm sorry. indies coming over to me. He never does this. What are you looking at me?
Unknown Speaker 53:36
Buddy? That's okay, brother. What's going on?
Scott Benner 53:38
I'm not petting the dog on the podcast. Things have gotten out of hand and they're not interesting at the moment. But, but we have hardwood floors. So when he walks away you just gonna hear him like Click Clack. Go lay down the guy. It's okay,
Unknown Speaker 53:49
guys, you can do it. Are you walking in a circle? Go back and lay down. Good data.
Scott Benner 53:56
I have to ignore him or he's gonna stare at me without cute now basals here bazel. What do you want? Do you want to make a weird noise for everybody? How about? Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 54:10
This is Katie.
Scott Benner 54:10
I'm so sorry about this. You're being you're being infringed upon heartily. Did we have we not talked about anything that you were hoping to talk about?
Katie Parks 54:19
Not really, we kind of covered everything.
Scott Benner 54:21
I do pretty good with this. I don't like but I'm also a good parent. Apparently.
Katie Parks 54:25
You helped me so much like this. I was a little nervous before we started, like I like I mentioned but I'm feeling great. Now like,
Scott Benner 54:33
okay, the secret here in this situation is that I am emotionally not much older than you. So I'm able to relate on this level. Pretty simply, actually, if you want to talk about other stuff, like BuzzFeed quizzes or to find out like Harry Potter character, I just I know about all this stuff. I do I so I guess I I asked you earlier if there are things you're worried about in the future. I thought burnout was a really, like, seriously mature answer. I was thinking like you were going to be worried about dating or driving or something like that. But you went through something really important. And so that I think you listen, you can't tell the future for anybody. Right? But that you're thinking about it now in a thoughtful way, I think is a good indicator that you'll be okay. If it should come. And then if it doesn't come, I wouldn't spend a ton of time worrying about it. You know what I mean? Like, it's, I think you'd be okay, if it did happen.
Katie Parks 55:31
Okay, thank you. Yeah,
Scott Benner 55:32
he's like, I appreciate it's a weird thing to do this podcast, by the way, because sometimes when you're giving your opinion, it's feels like you're telling someone something, and and I always want to, like, be like, Look, it's not my place to say,
Unknown Speaker 55:45
like, right? Yeah.
Scott Benner 55:46
No, seriously, like, I think it's like anything else in life? If you're, if you're kind of thoughtfully aware. And you don't need to, you don't need to sit around worrying about it all the time. Because, you know, I named a whole episode that I think worry is an incredible waste of imagination, you know, like, So, as long as you're ready for when something happens. You don't have to sit and think about it constantly. Can I ask you're using the G six or the G five for the Dexcom?
Katie Parks 56:13
I'm using Digi six. We got it? pretty recently.
Unknown Speaker 56:17
Did you have the G five?
Katie Parks 56:19
Yeah, so we Yeah, so I started with the G five. Like pretty, pretty soon after diagnosis. We got the Dexcom. Like right away. Well, actually my like, right after we got diagnosed. Okay, my mom loves listening to podcasts. Like,
Scott Benner 56:36
does she listen to this one?
Katie Parks 56:37
I think she does. Not as often as I do. I listen every every week.
Scott Benner 56:43
Thank you. And secondly, let's call this one Katie's mom is scary.
Unknown Speaker 56:50
No, she's like,
Scott Benner 56:51
I don't think she would at all. I think that's why it's fun. But there's no By the way, there's no better joy as an adult than to say something to a child who's not yours about their parents and put their parents in lockers situation. It's one of my favorite things in the whole world to do. So I don't I never get to do it on the podcast. I do like to like sometimes, you'd be like a softball game with Arden or something like that. And the kid will be like, Yeah, I just want to go here for lunch. And you'll hear the parent go, No, we can't. And I'll like look at them. I'll be like, you know, if your dad wasn't such a horrible person, I think he really would take you to that. And I think maybe if you just asked him like this and said this, and then I just look over to that. And I'm just waving I don't like, I think I don't know why I just enjoy causing problems for other parents. So, but we're clearly joking. Your mom's your mom's? Yeah.
Katie Parks 57:38
I love her. She's, she's amazing. Well, yeah, I
Scott Benner 57:40
mean, you have to love her because she says, because if you don't, I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. Your mom's name? I'm
Unknown Speaker 57:46
sorry. Shell shell. We're
Scott Benner 57:48
just joking. I'm so sorry. It's got a great sense of humor for 14. So that's something good. She, by the way, Katie, you are sarcastic in a way. I don't expect that of West Coast people, which is totally unfair of me to say, and your parents on the East Coast originally by any chance. My dad's from Florida.
Unknown Speaker 58:08
Texas,
Scott Benner 58:09
okay, so they can handle it. They've taught you, right? Yeah. There are some times when my children are having conversations that are only in sarcasm. And I think this is probably not healthy. I think during the middle of them, like we should probably say something real to each other. And not just keep testing each other's ability to joke. But but know you're really like, I just, it is hard for me to think that you're 14 while we're talking. So it's really cool to be able to have like such a fun and thoughtful conversation with you at this age. It's really, it's really something Can I ask you? Do you ever have since since you you can talk on a different level for your age? Have you had any moments yet? Where you like really? Do you get sad ever? Like do you ever think wow, I really wish this wouldn't happen to me.
Katie Parks 58:59
Um, I do sometimes. Like, especially if I like Miss Bolus, or like if, like, for example, like a few days ago, we had like a faulty Center, a sensor. And like, my data was so spotty. So like, I would be like at 16. Like, I'd say I was at 60. And then like, I get no data and then like 30 minutes later, I'd be like 200 something. And so I was getting really frustrated. And I was like, Why do I have to deal with this? No, I
Scott Benner 59:33
I've had an ardent when she was younger, a few times she would. I don't know if meltdowns the right word, but she would just be like, I can't believe this is my life. Like, I don't want this, you know, but it hasn't happened recently and I just didn't know you're such a good person to ask. So when something goes a little out of your control, that that's when it hits you a little harder.
Unknown Speaker 59:57
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Makes sense.
Scott Benner 1:00:00
It really does. I mean, I think you're doing really well. But I mean it to expect to never feel like that is unreasonable, I think, right? You know, it's obvious that things like this are gonna come up. Wow. Well, you're really cool. I would trade Arden for you probably already known her for like 14 years. Right? That's enough. Yeah. My son left when he was 18. He just up and went to college. Like, we didn't even count. He was like, say it was it. But that's it. You're like, by, you know, so this kid really is only gonna give us like four more years, and then she's out of here. So I could start over with you. It'd be nice. I don't ski and I would never call Katie, you would hate living with me. You'd be like, Can we go skiing? And I'd say no. And then you'd say, Can we go for a hike? And I go God, no. Like, don't you just want to watch Netflix? What's wrong with you, Katie?
Katie Parks 1:00:56
Let's go nature.
Scott Benner 1:00:58
Watch One Tree Hill for the 13th time and leave me alone, please. That's completely fair. But But I really don't want to climb up anything. We're coming back down it really fast either. None of that makes a whole ton of sense to me. Just Just so you know. But I'm glad it makes sense to you. How is it managing your blood sugar while you're like doing stuff like that? Like skiing, hiking, those kind of things? Is it just you handle it mostly with Temp Basal?
Katie Parks 1:01:24
Yeah, Temp Basal is a big part of it. The like, the biggest problem is adrenaline. And if I noticed that my line is starting to head up. I'll usually just quit the Temp Basal. And that usually brings it back down. And worst case scenario I just give myself like how you use juice boxes. I use Skittles. Nice. Like, I just give myself enough for five Skittles to cover.
Scott Benner 1:01:49
Do try to combine certain colors for a certain flavor, or do you not think about it?
Unknown Speaker 1:01:56
Um, I know.
Scott Benner 1:01:58
You don't have an immediate answer. You don't know.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:01
A little bit. Well,
Unknown Speaker 1:02:02
I try to like purple with yellow.
Katie Parks 1:02:05
No, I try to save like the colors. Like I have an order that I eat the colors in.
Scott Benner 1:02:10
Okay, do you like the psychiatrists? Is there something wrong? There's an order and there's colors what's going on green
Katie Parks 1:02:15
first, then yellow, and orange, then purple than red?
Scott Benner 1:02:20
I think your mind might want to be scared of you forget them. So you eat them in order like you eat all that all the greens first.
Katie Parks 1:02:30
Well, I eat all but one of the green.
Scott Benner 1:02:35
You're not sounding crazy. Katie. You're crazy.
Katie Parks 1:02:38
But I have it. What is the greens? Like all but one of the yellows etc? And then I have like the five like colors at the end? And then I eat those like all
Scott Benner 1:02:51
the colors of the rainbow.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:53
Yeah.
Scott Benner 1:02:54
Which is going to be the end. That's going to be the title of the episode, I'm assuming. But but that's Wow. Listen, we only have a couple minutes left, but you're not like hopping over like cracks and sidewalks or anything like that. Are you? Okay? All right. Is there any other weird stuff you do that we should maybe Call a doctor about?
Unknown Speaker 1:03:13
Nope, I could think of
Scott Benner 1:03:14
that you're gonna after you heard yourself saying the Skittles thing out loud. You were like, Oh, I should have never said this right? Am I right? Yeah. Can be your new best friend. Even though we're like 40 years apart. I don't think we can be friends. I think that would be weird. But but still. But I am really genuinely, like, I want to say here at the end like this is it's gonna sound like I'm saying something positive about myself. But I'm not. Although I might be. I am the greatest parent in the world. So whatever. I can do what, but but that a podcast, basically run by a 47 year old guy who doesn't have Type One Diabetes that it could reach up 13 or 14 year old girl and do what it's done for you, I think is an amazing testament to how important it is to talk to other people who have diabetes.
Katie Parks 1:04:06
But so amazing. And yeah, that's it. That's exactly it. Like if you just like talk to other people like it helps you so much. Because it's so unlikely. Can
Scott Benner 1:04:15
you imagine if a friend of yours said Hey, what are you listening to? And you're like, oh, there's this old man on the East Coast doing a podcast about diabetes. I love it. Your friends would be like, wait, what's happening?
Katie Parks 1:04:27
When I said to my friends, I'm like, I'm gonna be recording a podcast and they're like, for what I'm like, talking to this old guy about Davies. Did you?
Scott Benner 1:04:38
Did you call me old? It's okay. If you did. I just want to know.
Unknown Speaker 1:04:40
Yeah. Excellent.
Scott Benner 1:04:42
That's so amazing. Because it's exactly what we're doing. Wow. I love this next generation. I wish I could be young again. I like how just obviously honest you are about it. You're like, I'm gonna go talk to a guy. I swear to God, he's like nine times older than us about something like this. They were probably like, why and did they say Why?
Unknown Speaker 1:05:02
I think so. Remember your
Scott Benner 1:05:05
favorite podcast and like, what's wrong with you? And you're like, shall
Unknown Speaker 1:05:07
we just like, smiled and nodded.
Scott Benner 1:05:11
They were probably they probably just walked away and they're like, do you ever see Aretha Skittles? Don't mess with her? Kid, you really are delightful. I appreciate you coming on and doing this. I have to go in a minute. But is there anything at all that you want to say? you absolutely should say it right now cuz we're gonna hang up.
Katie Parks 1:05:31
No, I think this is good. I, I love talking with you. And this hour flew by so fast. Well,
Scott Benner 1:05:36
I would love to hear back from you again, in a year or something like that, like, I'd love to have some more perspective from you. Because I just think you're a really good, you're really good person to hear from to the so if you want to. If you're up for this for as long as you'd be willing to. Maybe every year, we should, like just do this again. And again. And again. Maybe it would be really cool to track like one person's progress to all this.
Katie Parks 1:06:01
And that would be amazing. I think.
Scott Benner 1:06:02
And for anybody else who has younger people who have been on the podcast before that I didn't offer this too. It just occurred to me now. It's not like I've had the IDM and waiting for the right kid. Your kid wasn't the right kid. Nothing like that. Just just it just occurred to me now. Like maybe it would be cool to maybe revisit this over and over again. So let's try to keep that in mind and keep in touch.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:22
Yeah, definitely. Katie, thank
Scott Benner 1:06:23
you so much. Please tell your parents thank you for being good sports, and apologize to your sister if five out of the fact that she might get diabetes one day. I will make sure she doesn't hear that before you know, okay. Okay, I'm gonna say goodbye. What did I tell you? Katie is amazing. And this episode was spectacular. You know what else is amazing and spectacular. Dexcom Omni pod dancing for diabetes and real good foods. Don't forget to get your free pod experience kit from Omni pod just go to my Omni pod comm Ford slash juice box. Speaking about less monies, and I mean, tough to get better than free. But about 20% off at real good foods calm that's 20% off your entire order when you use the offer code juice box. I can't give you anything free with Dexcom but I can give you some free advice. Try it Dexcom g six. It is a game changer. dexcom.com forward slash juice box. And if you want to hear me talk about being bold with insulin, you're gonna have to come to Orlando in may go to dancing for diabetes.com. To find out more, go to the Events tab and then click on touch by type one. There you'll see me and other people who'll be talking but I mean, honestly, you're gonna come from me. If you catch some other people and they're good bonus dancing for diabetes.com that's dancing the number four diabetes.com I'll see you next week.
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